Salad for Supper

I hope you had a nice weekend!  We had a wonderful weekend, but were out of town for the past five days so I'm trying to get back into the swing of things here.  

Today I thought I'd share a salad recipe that is my husband's favorite.  Actually, my entire family loves this so I make it frequently.  It's easy, quick, and delicious - perfect for supper on a busy weeknight.

Begin by frying some bacon.  We all love bacon in this house so I chop at least 6 pieces and fry them until crispy.

 While the bacon is frying, I chop all the vegetables, starting with the lettuce.  I love artisan lettuce, so I typically use it but I think just about any variety would work for this salad. For our family, I probably chop about four cups or so. 

Next, dice some tomatoes (I prefer grape or cherry for a salad).  Sadly, this was the very last bunch of  grape tomatoes from our garden!

Chop up an avocado and add it along with some gorgonzola cheese (I use about 1/4 cup).

 Lastly, add the cooked bacon.  You can see why my husband often refers to this as a BLT salad!

 While this salad would be delicious with any dressing, I always quickly make a batch of this vinaigrette to go with it as my cookbook suggested.  Likely you will have some left over and it makes a perfect marinade for chicken later on in the week. I'll include the recipe at the end of the post.

To complete the meal, I often use this recipe for a side of bread... the only difference being I use about a third of the butter her recipe calls for, but it's still delicious (and a little healthier... you know, to make up for all that fried bacon - smile).

This is what a simple supper looks like for us... even though we have a large dining room table, we almost always eat in our kitchen cramped together at our old farmhouse table.  It's cozy and cheerful with the late afternoon sunlight streaming in and one of my favorite times of the day.

Salad recipe adapted from My Father's Daughter cookbook

Vinaigrette Dressing Recipe

 From My Father's Daughter cookbook

Mix together:

2 tsp dijon mustard

2 tsp maple syrup

1/4 c red wine vinegar

2 Tbsp vegetable or canola oil

1/2 c extra virgin olive oil

coarse salt (I like Kosher)

freshly ground black pepper

 P.S.  The randomly selected winner of the Eco Natural Soap giveaway is #38 Angie.
Congratulations, Angie!
Thank you all for entering!