There is nothing more satisfying than growing your own food, especially if you are an urban dweller and have the luxury of large backyard, balcony, or terrace. Watching the things grow, harvesting them and making scrumptious dishes out of the freshest, organically grown seasonal vegetables is the crowning of culinary art, cooked or raw, in my not so humble opinion.
The summer was really harsh in Roswell and even the farmers at the farmers' market complained about the bad crops. We have lost a lot of our heirloom vegetables that we planted in spring, but as the temperatures fell at the end of September, we noticed that our garden started coming back to life. Suddenly, our tomato and cucumber plants started producing flowers, so did the sweet potatoes. Nasturtiums and dandelions, cilantro and kale just went wild! Sooner that we even hoped for, cucumbers and tomatoes started showing up.
Today we harvested our first cucumbers ever! I picked up some greens and herbs, tomatillos, tomatoes and few more things, and decided to make a quick salad for lunch. I added organic baby romaine lettuce and used key limes to make the dressing, otherwise, all the ingredients are came from our backyard garden.
Ingredients:
- mixed greens (dandelion, nasturtium, purple lettuce, etc.)
- 1 baby romaine lettuce
- 2 ripe tomatoes
- 2 tomatillos
- 2 medium large cucumbers
- 1 small sweet potato
- mixed herbs (cilantro, celery tops)
- handful of radishes
- edible flowers (I used nasturtiums)
- juice of 4-5 key limes
- 1/3 cup virgin olive oil
- Celtic sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Method:
- Wash and pat dry all the ingredients. Chop or break the larger lettuce leaves into manageable chunks.
- Chop herbs and tomatillos. Slice cucumbers and radishes. Cut tomatoes into 1/8 segments. Julienne or spiralize sweet potato. Toss everything in to a large salad bowl and mix gently.
- In a smaller bowl, mix key lime juice and virgin olive oil. Add 2 Tbsp purified water, sea salt and black pepper, and whisk into a smooth, velvety vinaigrette.
- Pour vinaigrette over the salad and mix gently.
- Serve right away and garnish with edible flowers. Enjoy in good company!
Tip: If you have a garden, use whatever you can harvest, but if you don't, visit a local farm and get fresh, organically grown veggies. You may even be able to pluck your own tomatoes.
In radiant health - passionately raw - Dominique
Dominique Allmon©2016