Peach Caprese Salad

This Peach Caprese Salad is super refreshing and the perfect appetizer to serve at your next barbecue.

Simply layer peach slices, mozzarella cheese slices and basil leaves.

To make the glaze simple heat up some balsamic vinegar about 1/2 cup in a small sauce pan with a few tablespoons of honey for about 10 minutes until the mixture thickens. Then simply drizzle it over the peaches.

I love the smell fresh peaches.

Summertime Individual Salads

This is an easy and fun salad to serve at your next BBQ. You will just need some pretty glass bowls and your imagination. This recipe makes 4 bowls.

Ingredients:

2 red bell peppers, diced

2 avocados, diced

1 can of black beans, rinsed and drained

2 cups cooked white rice

2 roma tomatoes, chopped

2 ears of cooked corn, scrape off kernels

olive oil

fresh lime juice

lime zest

cilantro, minced

scallions, minced

salt and pepper 

Directions:

Layer the bottom of each bowl with the diced red bell peppers.

Toss the avocados with a little olive oil, lime juice and cilantro. Layer the avocado over the red bell peppers.

Layer the black beans over the avocado.

Toss the white rice with olive oil, lime juice, cilantro, scallions, salt and pepper. Layer the white rice over the black beans.

Season the tomatoes with salt and layer over the white rice.

Season the corn kernels with salt and pepper. Layer the corn over the tomatoes.

Isn't that easy? And you can substitute with leftover chicken or brown rice instead of white rice. Perhaps you have a bummer crop of zucchini  - sauté the zucchini  and  substitute a layer with zucchini.

This is a perfect appetizer or salad to serve at your next family dinner or BBQ.

Summer Layered Salad

Today I made a lovely layered salad to bring to my tennis match. This is a very refreshing and figure friendly salad. I actually started making the salad the day before - a trick I learned from my mom.

The day before the match I washed and chopped the napa cabbage, julienned  the yellow bell peppers, shredded the carrots and peeled and sectioned the grapefruits. I placed everything into individual ziplock bags and placed them in the fridge for the morning.

I always use my footed glass bowl whenever I make a layered salad.  Hopefully you have one of these in your cupboard.  If not try to find a glass bowl with straight sides.

I added 5 cups of shredded napa cabbage to my bowl.

On top of the cabbage I added 3 julienned yellow bell peppers and pressed down on the lettuce.

Now I added the sections from 3 red grapefruits. Remember I peeled and sectioned the grapefruit the night before.

On top of the grapefruit I added 2 cups of shredded carrots, 1/3 cup of sliced green onions and the zest of one lime.

Cut your green onions in very small little rings since they are on the very top of the salad - it is important that they look pretty.

Doesn't this look lovely? And the bulk of the work I did the night before!

I made the dressing in a jar so that it would transport to the tennis club without any spills!

To make the dressing I added 1/3 cup of olive oil, 2 tablespoons of tequila, a few tablespoons of fresh ginger and lime zest.

I also added a small jalapeno in which I seed and diced  into the dressing. It smelled so good while I was driving to the tennis club.

 I think everyone really liked the salad. To serve just give the dressing a few shakes and toss the salad with the dressing.