Chopped Salad

One of my favorite things to eat and make...is a chopped salad. I don't know what there is about this salad...except that the pieces are all the same size and the ingredients can be anything. For Father's Day, I'm making one of these. I love using different kinds of lettuces....I have Bibb, romaine, iceberg, and red leaf.  Cherry tomatoes are perfect for this kind of salad. I will use an English cucumber, scallions, gr. pepper, black and green olives, mushrooms, cheese, fresh corn, bacon,and croutons. I may toss in some salami, hard boiled eggs and whatever else I may have on hand. If I use salami I won't use bacon...

This is such an easy salad to make. I get out my big chopping board and my sharpest knife. This will let me practice my chopping skills. I start out with the lettuces and then the scallions. Then move on the the cherry tomatoes...which I cut in half. The rest of the ingredients come next.
I'll line my salad bowl with Bibb lettuce and fill it with the chopped veggies. I can do this ahead of time...just covering it with Saran wrap. When it's time to serve...I'll dress the salad and top with croutons.

I am making a different salad dressing.....like one that we used to enjoy at a restaurant called Dieterle's in Elgin, Il. It was a German restaurant that had such wonderful food. I went there a few times with my Mom and Dad. They were regulars at the restaurant and once in a while, Mom would buy some bratwurst or some other kind of meat right from the kitchen. She used to bring a jar and they would fill it with their salad dressing.One time, when I was with them...the chef came out and took us  back into the kitchen. Mom made her usual purchases and we went back to our seats. I saw a bottle of Walnut oil on the counter... in their kitchen. So, now I have a can of walnut oil and I'm going to try to create the same dressing. This was their house dressing. They used it on spinach salad too.
I'm going to take some balsamic vinegar, walnut oil, a small portion of olive oil, chopped garlic, and a few crushed walnuts, salt and pepper and a dash of sugar. I like to make salad dressings and often don't follow a recipe...just adding a dash of this and that until it tastes right. I'll have to experiment with this to get it tasty.

I made a chopped salad at our Christmas party with Joe's family one year. I didn't want to clutter the table with salad bowls, so I took a big platter and covered it with  hearts of romaine lettuce leaves. Then I put the, already dressed, chopped salad on each of the lettuce leaves. The meal was served buffet style and everyone took a leaf with the salad on it. It worked out well.

I'll have to fiddle with this dressing, but I'm going to keep track when I get it just right. This salad will be so pretty in my Mom's cut glass bowl.

Well, I have to get busy around here. Joe is off to Rockford and I want to get a few things done before he comes home. We have a special day coming up and I have a couple of things pertaining to that to do. Tell you about it this weekend.
Balisha