Mediterranean Chopped Salad Concept Recipe

Fresh vegetables chopped together, tossed with a vinaigrette, and garnished with feta cheese.

This is not a post for a tentative cook, though honestly I have no idea how many of my readers aren't assertive in the kitchen. I mean, someone adventurous* enough to sign up for a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share has got to have some confidence in the kitchen, right?

I made this salad to serve alongside a Lebanese-spiced ground beef and lentil dish. We ate this as shown, with hummus, yogurt, and warm naan bread. The fresh crunchy salad was the hit of the meal. Over the summer I threw together versions of this quick salad to serve alongside grilled chicken, alongside a dinner of hummus & chips, and as a snack. [Apparently I never bothered to label any other photos of it in the thousands of photos taken last year.]

Why should I include such a simple recipe idea on this blog? Easy. The whole point of the blog is to give you ideas for what to do with produce from your farm share, your garden, the farmer's market or store. The more ideas, the more successfully you'll use your produce. If the photos do a decent job of conveying how fresh and crunchy this side dish is, then my work here is done.

This recipe will appear in the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient as well as the Cucumber Recipes Collection and the Pepper Recipes Collection. If I remember to snap a photo of it with other combinations of veggies, I'll update and add it to additional collections. You can also find this, and other ideas for using Colorful Veggies [that grow] Above Ground on my Pinterest board of the same name.

The reason I preface this recipe with such a disclaimer is that I cannot find any of the notes from when I made it last year. I recall giving vague instructions to the guinea pigs ladies at work when they asked for the recipe. If that works for my colleagues who are confident cooks, it should work for you.

Mediterranean Chopped Salad Concept Recipe

1 cucumber, diced (peeled if you want, I prefer the crunch contrast)

1-2 colorful peppers, chopped into bite sized pieces

½ onion or shallot, diced

vinaigrette (my son made this--using fresh thyme, mustard, and lemon juice)

crumbled feta cheese

other optional vegetables: cubed summer squash or zucchini, diced carrots or kohlrabi or radish

Toss vegetables together with 2-4 tablespoons of vinaigrette in a bowl. Let stand 15 minutes or chill for up to 4 hrs. Top with feta cheese and serve. Keeps for another day or two in the fridge.

I don't have the first clue where to start with this one.  I suggest you hit The Lemon Bowl for Liz's Hushwee recipe which is what inspired me, though I added lentils and lost all recording implements to document what I did.

*Big props to Chris' fiancee Katie who came up with this term in a stinky hockey locker room in Grand Rapids over the weekend.