Prosciutto, Melon, and Arugula Salad

 

When summer gives you melons, make a delicious summer salad!

In our household during the summer months we like to buy a variety of melons to cut up and have on-hand in the fridge for easy snacking. I came upon a photo of this salad on The Peasant & The Pear's Facebook page and just had to try and re-create it.

How does one go about re-creating something they have never had before? I could see from the photo they used a balsamic glaze to drizzle on the melon balls, but I was curious as to what the arugula was dressed with. I went to the restaurants website menu to read the description - not much help. Just listed what was easily seen in their photo. So I did a Google search for melon and prosciutto salad. As you can imagine there is an abundance of recipes for this type of salad.

I ended up going with my usual salad dressing I make (walnut oil, Cabernet vinegar, sweet-hot mustard, salt and pepper), subbing balsamic vinegar in place of the Cabernet vinegar to dress the arugula. I tossed the melon balls with a little olive oil and salt (as one of the many recipes I read, had done), and topped the salad with a few shavings of Parmesan. I then made a balsamic reduction to drizzle over the salad.

This turned out to be a very tasty!

Book Eighty: The Wellness Lowfat Cookbook

by The Wellness Cooking School and
The University of California at Berkeley

  

                                                                          Potato and Spinach Casserole


We have been eating a lot of meat, chicken and fish lately. Mostly chicken and I was wanting something meatless. Normally when I look for a meatless meal they seem to always include a lot of cheese, cream, and/or butter; or that is what I am drawn to (e.g. Five Cheese Pasta which is really, really good.)

If I had more time I would consider starting an on-line cooking group called Meatless Mondays. However I am already in two other groups, Tuesdays with Dorie and Wok Wednesdays which are keeping me quite busy, not to mention cooking through the numerous books on my shelves; the reason I started this blog.

As I sit here typing away, the aroma is heavenly - I can't wait to begin devouring this.

I pulled this out of the oven after fifty minutes - the time suggested in the recipe. The potatoes were not even close to being done. I changed the oven temp to 375° and at full convection. I cannot tell you exactly how long I cooked it for at that temperature for I got side tracked on the computer. I am guessing that 20 minutes passed (the amount of time I think it took hubby to run to the store and return) and checked it again. STILL not done. Grrrrr.. mind you that I dressed my salad when I pulled it out at the fifty minute mark. To say the least, my lettuce at serving time was a bit wilted. Note to self: do not dress salad until you know for sure that your main course is done. After an additional thirty minutes it was finally ready to serve. The potatoes to me were al a dente. Andy said he would like them to be cooked a bit more. They did soften up more after being re-heated for lunch the next day.

I added salt and pepper at the table. The recipe did not call for it, and as salt does, it brought out the flavor and made it taste even better. I would add it next time while assembling the layers as well as adding some of the breadcrumb/parmesan mixture in-between the layers. I would highly recommend adding fresh thyme for it added a bit of pizazz.

I served this with a simple green salad with my favorite salad dressing made up of walnut oil, cabernet vinegar, sweet/hot mustard and a dash of salt and pepper.

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