Summer Salad Sampler

I really wanted bread salad for dinner tonight so I stopped at the store on the way home. I saw some nice fruit and decided to make a few different salads for dinner tonight and tomorrow night.

Here's the bread salad, modeled after Panera's - good bread chunked up (this one is called Peasant bread), fresh mozzarella, good tomatoes (from the garden/farmers market when its that time, these are $4 a pint "Splendido" extra sweet grape tomatoes), and honey balsamic dressing It turned out great, yum!

My favorite summer salad is a green salad with lots of fruit on top - whatever your favorites are - my standard is a melon (watermelon), berry, and one or more of: peach, nectarine, plum. This time there is a bit more with: peach, apricot, red grapes, cherries, and plum along with the romaine, mushrooms, tomato, and european cucumber. I like this one with a balsamic dressing too, or, raspberry vinaigrette or something of the sort.

And I also whipped up a macaroni salad.

elbow macaroni with ranch dressing, baco bits, and burgundy olives. Not too attractive since the baco bits and burgundy olives are the same color basically so it is monochromatic, but it tastes great! I was going to use green olives but the jar didn't pop right when I opened it so... I've never bought these burgundy olives before but they grabbed my attention in the store a few weeks ago and I picked them up. They're good! The flavor is different than a plain black olive, and the color is... a bit off putting actually. According to the can they have olive oil and vinegar in them (Burgundy wine vinegar apparently) and according to the website, they come in flavors as well. These were Classic Italian which is the "plain" variety it seems.

And... another baby hat. I finished the Pink Petal hat (Upside-Down Daisy), now hopefully somebody has a girl!

note: In case anyone was unclear, I'm only obsessed with baby hats, not babies. None of these baby hats are for me. ;-)