Salads for Supper
It used to be that when one of my kids asked, “What’s for dinner?” I’d grab a basket and say, “Let’s see what the garden has to offer.”
Generally, I knew what the garden had to offer, be it beans, tomatoes, zucchini, or salad greens. I could count on my boy to snack on as much as, or more than, what he put in the basket. That was OK by me—better to fill up on green beans than on crackers. But the ritual of going to the garden to harvest supper, well, that’s one of the joys of summer.
What isn’t a joy for me is the heat. I don’t like it. And I don’t like to work in a hot kitchen. So my summer meal planning involves lots of main-dish salads. Often, I’ll cook the protein or grains that round out the salad in advance, before the kitchen heats up in the afternoon sun. Then, supper is simply tossed together or arranged on a
