Jun 2, 2011

Celestial Summer Salad


A practically perfect Summer salad. Yum. This was a super easy salad even including sugaring the almonds. Yes, I just said sugaring the almonds. DE.LIGHT.FUL. No joke. I might have eaten some before putting them into the salad. Note to self: make extra next time because you just won't be able not to eat some.


While I don't love a lot of things about Summer--what??! Blaspheme, I know who doesn't adore Summer right?...this girl that is who--I do love a great salad. Summer is perfect for salads. Ingredients are fresher.  They are lighter. Nothing says Summer to me like a salad.

SO when I came across this recipe in food blog land I decided it was immediately going on my must-make-list.

I pretty much love, love, loved it. Next time I might mess with the dressing a bit, but it still was yummy. So if you have any BBQ's coming up, the crowd will not be disappointed you brought this.

Celestial Summer Salad 
your homebased mom

Ingredients


1 cup almond slivers + 1/4 cup sugar to sugar them, I'll explain
1 cup chopped celery
2 green onions, sliced
1/2-1 cucumber peeled and diced
1 can mandarin oranges, drained.
2-3 heads of romaine lettuce, torn into bite size pieces
Dressing:
1-2 tablespoons of sugar
1/2 teaspoons of salt
dash of pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons of white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon of red wine vinegar
sprinkle of red pepper flakes

The first thing you want to do is sugar your almonds. Start with a medium pan. Pour your almonds in and sprinkle the sugar over the almonds. Turn it to med heat. Stir pretty regularly. There will not be much change at first. Then the sugar will start to clump slightly...so don't worry. Just keep stirring. Then you will see the sugar start to melt. Keep stirring. Eventually the sugar will coat all of the almonds and then they will start to get golden. This is when you are done. DO NOT let it go past this stage or they will burn. YUCK.

Turn your almonds out on a flat surface to cool.

Go ahead sneak a few bites...I mean you do have to make sure they taste okay.

While the almonds are cooling, cut up all the veggies.


Open you can of oranges, drain.


Prepare the lettuce.

Whisk together your dressing ingredients.

Dump all of your ingredients into a bowl. Toss. Then drizzle liberally with the dressing.

Steal a few more almonds...then serve it to your friends and family.


PS- Thanks for all the kind words about my drama in mommyland yesterday. Reading back on it was a tad more dramatic than I had thought....not quite as witty as I had intended...I blame it on our house selling adventures...it is making me a drama queen.

5 comments:

Maggie and Sheepie said...

Let me solve your dressing dilemma. My mom (& I) make a similar salad that is everyones favorite. The salad is the same (although I had never thought to use cucmubers (I'll have to tell my mom!)), but the dressing is delicious and is as follows:
2 Tabl. vinegar (I usually use red wine vinegar or white vinegar, but whatever floats your boat)
4 Tabl. salad oil
2 Tabl. sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
Dash of pepper
1/8 teas. ALMOND EXTRACT (I ALWAYS put more than 1/8 teas. in, though!)

YUM YUM!

Larissa@Just Another Day in Paradise said...

YUM! I have a dressing recipe similar to that but it doesn't have almond extract. I will have to try it!!

Thanks.

Stockhoff Family said...

So cool. I am at a friends on her computer and this is one of her saved pages, my daughter's blog!!!! See how famous you are???! Now, I know what to make for dinner! Love ya

Beth- the mama bee said...

My grandma makes this - in fact we had it this weekend- but we leave out the almonds. I didn't know it was missing this, I'll have to try it this way soon.

Ixchelle said...

Just had this for dinner. So GOOD! Thanks for the directions on the almonds too.

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