Grilled Vegetable Salad Dinner

Potatoes, peppers, eggplant, chards, red onion, green beans, and fennel sliced and ready for the grill.
 

End of summer produce is the best.  Hot days ripen tomatoes, eggplants and peppers mature, and other produce available in farmer's markets and stores is glorious.  For our cooking class I featured grilled vegetables in a pasta salad and a Nicoise salad.  Left-overs inspired this simple salad that was filling enough to sate my boy's bellies.

The vegetables were tossed only with olive oil before grilling.  The eggplant cooks quickly while the onions, fennel, chard stems, green beans, and peppers take a little longer.  Be watchful so that the veggies are neither under nor overcooked.

Composing the salad consisted of a handful of spring mix surrounded by halved cherry tomatoes.  Arugula is good also as are a variety of chopped herbs.  Next, layer on grilled veggies.  (I used them all).  Top with your choice of protein.   In this case we used thinly sliced grilled beef.  Other protein options include pressed and grilled tofu or seitan, chicken, or whatever your heart desires.

The finished product.  A salad composed of grilled and non-grilled vegetables topped with a lean protein. 

The final touch is the dressing.  As always, a freshly made vinaigrette is the first choice.  Two parts oil, one part vinegar, salt and pepper, and depending on how you feel, herbs or dry mustard.  In this case I ventured into something a little different.  I added ricotta salata which is a hard version of ricotta cheese and is crumbly.  Add a couple tablespoons of crumbled cheese to the vinaigrette and then drizzle over the composed meal.  For a vegan option, leave the cheese and meat out.  This was delicious.

One of the great things about eating healthy, besides not feeling guilty or glutteny afterwards, is that you can walk away with a sense of well-being.  A stroll after dinner with your family or spouse, your dog, or your music should end the evening and prepare you for restful sleep.

Calories for the salad with the ricotta salata dressing but not including the meat is about 550 and offers almost 15 grams of fiber and 12 grams of protein.  The measurement for this calculation included 1 cup greens, 3 cherry tomatoes halved, 2 red small red potatoes halved, a handful of green beans, 4 slices eggplant, about 1/2 head of fennel, several slices of red onion, and a couple tablespoons of vinaigrette.  All vegetables except the lettuces and tomatoes were grilled.

- Kim Fielding