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Mary's Tomato Salad

Whenever we have a fresh batch of Pomodoro al Forno in the house one of my favorite week night meals is to use them in a salad. There are so many things you can do with the tomatoes,  but my favorite is just a simple salad.  I tend to not eat meat during the week. It's not a rule, if a meal happens for me that has meat in it I'm not passing it up, but I actually prefer meals that don't have meat in them so when I can make my own, I choose to go meatless.   No preaching, I just feel better and it's better for the environment.  I guess this is as good as time as any to bring up the meat that Daryl and I do eat.  It's only locally raised, purchased at our fabulous Farmer's Markets or Co-ops.  We especially like to get our meat at Heartland which is a 4 star restaurant in Lowertown St. Paul, but they also have a small market next door that sells house made products and locally farmed produce and meat.

The salad for me is a meal, but do with it as you wish!  The following recipe, if you want to call it that - I guess I have become my mother in that I don't have an amounts list for this, I just put in the amount that I like.  For this version, I had some garbanzo beans in the fridge from a salad I made the night before and thought I'd throw some in.  I have made it with chicken, shrimp and both hard and soft boiled eggs, all fantastic.

I apologize for not having a photo of a finished salad - I guess I was just too excited to eat it and forgot to take a picture first!  You will understand once you make your own : )

Since Daryl has his own Pot Roast, I decided I needed my own salad.

Mary's Salad
Yield: 1
Time: 5 minutes (notice the time difference between a Daryl meal and a Mary meal : )

Salad
Handful of lettuce of your choice(I usually use spinach and romaine)
Red onion
Goat cheese
Croutons made from Daryl's homemade basic country bread
Sprinkle of garbanzo beans
5 or 6 slices of tomatoes

Dressing
2 T. olive oil from Pomordoro al Forno
1T balsamic vinegar
1T red wine vinegar
salt and pepper
Mix and enjoy

Love this salad with a glass of red wine!



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