So this summer I've been learning a lot about how to cook in single portions. When it's just you eating, it can be easy to skip the cooking and just have popcorn or ice cream for dinner. But that's not nearly as satisfying or grown up as I'd like to be. Finding that motivation to make something satisfying and moderately healthy has been a huge goal of mine this summer. However, making dinner for a crowd comes with its own set of challenges.
My parents and I had decided to get together for an all-too-rare family dinner. We decided that a big summer salad would be the perfect way to please everyone... And then we got to the grocery store. We couldn't decide on anything! We were all hungry enough that we didn't want to compromise on our meals so we ended up buying literally every salad topping we could think of. Red and white onions because my mother doesn't like the red kind, two kinds of cheeses, and both bacon and crab because of course. We even got two different kinds of lettuce to serve as the base of our salads. We felt totally ridiculous but I can honestly say it was worth it to have tons of options and to really be able to customize. Plus, it created quite an impressive spread.
So here we've got:
- Spinach
- Baby arugula
- Walnuts
- Cherry tomatos
- Radishes
- Red onions
- White onions
- Feta cheese
- Two different varieties of green olives
- Avocados
- Blue cheese
- Rasberries
- King crab meat
- Bacon
- Salt and peppa
- Whatever salad dressing options happened to be hiding in our fridge that night. (I think there were seven different bottles. Once again, we're ridiculous.)
All you need to do is wash and chop all of the ingredients, pick what you want to go in your monster salad, toss it with your dressing and enjoy! Oh, and poor yourself a glass of pinot grigio. That totally makes it taste better, I promise. We took our masterpieces out to the picnic table on our patio and had a wonderful family dinner full of deep conversation and uncontrollable giggles.
As usual, my dad and I turned it into a competition to see whose salad turned out best. Then we kept the competition rolling with ping pong, foosball, and a little basketball. Sometimes indecision can be fun!
