The tomatoes to your left, were picked off my tomato vines in California with only their first blush of red, carefully tucked in my carry-on, and placed on the window sill here in Cape Cod to ripen. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to transport tomatoes in a bag onto an airplane? Well, it is! Not only are there heavy books and magazines to contend with...but also feet....and beverage carts....
Anyway, they made it, ripened beautifully and were tossed into a salad of arugula, corn, chicken and blue cheese earlier this week. And they were worth the effort to transport, because unlike backyard eggs, you really can tell the difference in flavor with homegrown tomatoes! The arugula came from the FM here in Bass River and the corn from Jersey (shhh)....It was a fantastic and simple summer meal. As all summer meals should be, no?
Arugula Salad with Corn, Tomatoes, and Blue Cheese
adapted from Everyday Food
There are so many things going on in this salad, I feel it needs minimal dressing. But if you like your salads more heavily coated, you may want to double the lemon and olive oil. This would make for a fantastic lunch or light dinner.
Prep time: 20 minutes
Total time: 20 minutes
Yield: serves 2ish
Ingredients:
1 bag of baby arugula
2 large tomatoes, sliced
2 ears of corn, steamed for 2-3 minutes until tender and sliced off the cob *
1/2 cup sliced red onion
2 cooked chicken breast halves, sliced
1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
juice from one lemon
2 tablespoons olive oil
pinch of salt and pepper
Preparation:
1. Place arugula in a large salad bowl. Add in tomatoes, corn, red onion, chicken breast, and blue cheese.
2. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice and olive oil until combined. Add a pinch of salt and pepper to taste.
3. Toss salad with dressing until lightly coated. Taste for seasoning and serve immediately.
*You can also try microwaving your shucked corn. Place it on a plate and cover it with a paper towel. Microwave it for about one minute per ear.
One should not ripen tomatoes in direct sunlight. This will falsley ripen them from the outside only. Tomatoes want to ripen from the inside out. Place in a brown paper sack in a cool area. The sack will allow for some gas exchange but also hold some of the naturally produced gas (ethylene) by the tomato to help ripen them the correct way.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip, Joe! I think I knew that somewhere in the reaches of my mind....luckily, our tomatoes tasted quite delicious and were ripe throughout! =)
ReplyDeleteBy the way...I have two yet-to-be ripe tomatoes on my sill right now that are going in a brown paper sack STAT!
ReplyDeleteI also seem to recall something about adding an apple to the mix to help speed things along???
Yum, that sounds delicious! The blue cheese sealed the deal for me :)
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