...I made the best tomato salad last night. Seriously!
I bought Southern Living's August issue on Saturday (also found Mating Rituals of the North American WASP to read on an upcoming flight, yay!) and decided to make the Caramelized Cajun Chicken and Heirloom Tomato Salad. So easy and such a perfect summer dinner. Here's an approximation:
heirloom tomatoes (plus I added some sweet snacking tomatoes like grape tomatoes that my kids love) and 4 oz goat cheese + the dressing
You just need to whisk this together for the dressing:
1/3 c. canola oil, 1/4 c. lemon juice, 1 Tbsp. honey mustard, chopped fresh basil, a dash of red pepper (not shown but I did add some when I remembered)
Now. The recipe calls for "Fresh Lady Peas" which I surmised I would have a difficult time finding out here in the Pacific Northwest and I was right. SL says you can substitute some kind of pink peas or purple hull peas - but, again - no luck. So I searched and searched and decided I would just grab a can of these Crowder Peas and see what happened. Well, I got home and did a quick google and found an entry where someone said these were pretty darn close if not just about the same thing... so I rinsed them off and added them to the salad. (The fresh peas you are supposed to cook in boiling water.)
Aren't the colors amazing?! And it was delicious. The peas add lots of protein and the combination of fresh basil, lemon and juicy tomatoes is just perfect. The goat cheese is supposed to be crumbled but mine turned out to be more "creamy dollops" as it was not so crumbly - but that worked out great also.
SL's chicken was also super easy. All I did was mix together equal parts of brown sugar & Cajun seasoning (this is 2 Tbsp each), flattened out the chicken breasts and coated them, then handed them to my husband to grill. Delish!
I hope everyone had a lovely weekend. Happy Monday!
xoxo
Good Morning and happy Monday! This looks absolutely AMAZING and DELICIOUS!! Yay!! Great job!! It is going to be hot and humid here today, so thank you for the idea!!
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't even seen like summer here anymore! It is gray and drippy - high of 68 and 60% chance rain... back to Seattle weather!
ReplyDeleteThat looks delicious!! I'm not a pea fan so I would probably sub in some beans or just leave it with the tomatoes and cheese, but it looks soooo good!!! Thanks for posting the recipe, I'm going try it ;)
ReplyDeleteMMMM...with our fresh tomatoes in bloom here, I think this may have to be on my list to try the next week or two.
ReplyDeleteSouthern Living is truly a treasure trove for yum-tas-tic recipes! Are you the only person you know in the NW who reads it?
My mother-in-law is a southern living at home rep, so my home has a lot of Southern Living accents (even though we are definitely an IKEA modern kind of family)...
This looks delicious! I'll have to add it to our menu this week ~ thanks!
ReplyDeleteJo
That salad looks amazing and sounds so easy! I'm definitely going to have to try it.
ReplyDeleteThat salad looks delicious. I absolutely love tomatoes. I don't think I'm supposed to be eating them anymore but I just love them, right off the vine!
ReplyDeleteLove that salad - and I have fresh tomatoes in the back garden. I will have to try it. I never made it to my August Southern Living at the beach, it's still in my to-read pile. And that chicken sounds way yummy, too!
ReplyDeleteI love heirloom tomatoes! This recipe looks so good!
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