Tomato Salad

One of the things I enjoy about the summer is the flavor of tomatoes. Yes we get them year round, but as we all know, they taste best in the summer, especially the heirloom tomatoes.

I had a bunch of heirlooms left from an Oz Catering gig, where I’ve made the good old Caprese salad to my client’s request, and I wanted to try and create something different.

I basically use what I had in my fridge and created a bed of chopped Romaine lettuce because I love the crunch of it. On top I’ve arranged wedges of Heirloom tomatoes, wedges of avocado, crumpled feta, sliced pepperoncini’s and basil chifonade. I drizzled extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, sprinkled salt & fresh ground pepper and enjoyed a lovely summer salad.

Twists:

• Replace Romaine with baby spinach/arugula/baby greens/iceberg
• Replace feta with crumbled goat cheese/gorgonzola.
• Replace pepperoncini’s (or add) with sliced olives .
• Replace basil with fresh oregano.

As I always say: Be creative and playful with your food. Sometimes you’ll find that you have just created a new and improved recipe because you didn’t have the ingredients the recipe calls for, and replaced them with what you had.