Summer Salad

The ingredients

• Romaine lettuce
• Baby carrots
• Celery
• Cucumber
• Cherry tomatoes
• Italian dressing (or any dressing you like – but it shouldn’t be a thick, creamy kind)

This is so easy, and yet so pretty!  For the bowl variety, while any bowl will do, but it looks especially pretty in a trifle bowl:

1. Wash your lettuce and break into rough pieces.
2. Slice the baby carrots and the celery.
3. Slice the cucumber and then quarter the slices.
4. Work up in layers:  lettuce, carrots/celery/cucmbers, lettuce, carrots/celery/cucumbers, etc.
5. Top with the cherry tomatoes (whole)

Since I made this one just for myself, I left out the tomatoes because I’m not a big fan… but if you’re making this for company you should definitely include them because they give a wonderful little splash of color.  I also didn’t cut the pieces quite small enough – they’re about twice as big as they should be for a presentation fit for company 🙂

For the plated variety:

1. Pick out the best looking leaves from your romaine lettuce and arrange three pieces whole on each plate.
2. Top with your other ingredients.
3. Drizzle dressing on top or serve on the side.

Again, it looks a lot better when you cut the pieces as small as they should be…  but this is a very pretty way to serve a salad IMHO.  🙂