Cubed Salad

Cubed Salad

Summer time seems to be the perfect time to crave a salad. I've been seeing lots of cubed salads as well as using watermelon for something other than dessert. I decided to try my hand at a cubed salad with watermelon.

Drawing inspiration from what I've been seeing and what looked good at the supermarket, I went with a 4 ingredient [baby watermelon, tomato, avocado, and queso fresco] salad plus some green onions for a bit of flavor.

Through trial and error I discovered that this salad needed neither dressing nor added salt. The juices from tomatoes and watermelon were enough to keep it moist and the queso fresco provided all the saltiness that I required. Acidity of the tomatoes went great with the sweetness of the watermelon and the saltiness of the queso fresco. The avocado provided a rich creamy texture while the watermelon added a much needed crunch factor.

The salad turned out a bit unusual for my taste buds, but in no way did it taste bad. I should have expected as much from using one of my favorite summer time desserts in a salad.

Beet Salad

Beet Salad

I've been craving beets lately.  Something about the sweetness of them that has had me thinking of them non stop.  So I decided to create my take on a beet salad.

The local market had beautiful gold beets along side red ones.  Having only had gold beets once, as part of a very expensive meal, I was curious about them.  I wanted to compare them side by side with their red counterparts.

I ended up making putting the following ingredients into my beet salad:  gold and red beets, hard boiled egg, cucumber, and queso fresco.  I used parsley and some roasted sunflower seed oil to tie it together.  I originally had a few more ingredients that I wanted to add, but decided they would take away from the simplicity of the salad.

Overall, I am pretty happy with the outcome.  The salad turned out a cohesive and well balanced as well as tasty.  The sweetness of the beets was balanced with the saltiness of the queso fresco.  The overall mushiness of the other ingredients was offset by the crunchiness of the cucumber.  As for the comparison, gold beets are very similar in taste to red ones, maybe just a bit less sweet.