Watermelon Mint Salad

Produce stands mounded with watermelons are a sure sign of summer as are the sweltering temps we're already suffering through as we lead into the Memorial Day holiday. I whipped up this simple watermelon and mint salad for lunch, but it could easily be scaled up in size as an ideal dish to pass at your next holiday picnic. I saw a similar recipe online that also called for some diced jalepeno pepper. If I had one, it would definitely be in the mix!

The ingredient list is basic:
Watermelon
Mint
Flat leaf parsley
Green Onion
Olive Oil
White Wine Vinegar (Champagne or Red wine would work too)
Salt and pepper to taste

Cut the watermelon into large chunks, toss in finely chopped parley, diced green onion and a chiffonade of mint. Click here for a great video of this technique.

I stole the mint from Jane next door as per usual, and I'm now the proud owner of a mini herb garden of my very own. I picked up some mixed herb pots at Stein's Garden Center for about $6 a pop. Each included three different herbs. I was at the market later and priced out those packaged fresh herbs and they're about $3 each. If you've got a sunny spot in a window and can remember to water your herbs, you'll come out way ahead in the long run and will always have some fresh flavor to add to any meal.

For the dressing mix 2 parts olive oil to one part vinegar and add salt and pepper to taste. Toss with the other ingredients and let it hang out for a few minutes to really soak in the flavor.

Garnish with a few sprigs of the mint, and you're ready to be the toast of the potluck party.

Asparagus Salad with Garbanzo Beans, Mint and Sweet Onions

A can of garbanzo beans has been staring at me in the cupboard for weeks, and I finally decided to crack it open, but what to do with garbanzos? Who bought these things anyway?

I still had a few stalks of asparagus in the veg bin, so I let Google do the work and paired the two ingredients together in my search bar and came up with this wonderful fresh salad at Chow.com. You can see the recipe here.

The only thing I didn't have on hand was the cheese it called for, and I simply swapped in parm.

The sweet onions, fresh mint swiped from Jane's garden (thanks Jane), a healthy squeeze of lemon and my wonderful olive oil (from the man who wondered where our men were in Provence) made this salad a pure delight.

This would be an easy one to take to the office. Just keep the cheese separate from the marinating salad until you're ready to eat. Delish!