A Supremely-Easy Summer Salad & A Cat That Loves Lettuce.

So tonight I'm feeling very accomplished. I made my own dressing. I'm eating fresh goat cheese drizzled with honey. I toasted pine nuts!!!

I went back into the Bonne Femme Cookbook and poured over the salad section. The author, Wini Moranville praises La Bonne Femmes for making all of their dressings fresh (and often table side). For whatever reason, over the years I have stayed away from homemade dressings. I don't really know why. Maybe I was worried that I would get carried away with the olive oil- that things would just turn out way too...oily.

Never fear- Vive La Bonne Femme! C'est Facile! It's Easy!

Truthfully, today was a bit stressful. I was looking forward to coming home and cooking; but I think if I had encountered something supremely difficult the Hubs might have come home from work to find me in the floor eating the goat cheese and drinking Pinot Grigio.

Pine nuts toasting in a little skillet. 

I used 1 Tbsp rice vinegar, 3 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, 1 clove of garlic minced, salt and pepper to taste.

I toasted baguette slices and topped with a bit of extra-virgin olive oil.

And here is the amusing part...my cat Pumpkin LOVES salad. 

Pumpkin begging for lettuce.

He recognizes the salad container. I go to get the 50/50 Spring Mix/Spinach salad mix out of the fridge and he runs to my feet...meowing. His little lettuce eating activity has become a sort of party trick. When guests come over and I'm fixing salad he gets a tiny piece and everyone laughs. 

So the sun is setting and I toss my salad mix in my homemade (not too oily) dressing and top it with the toasted pine nuts. My toasted baguettes receive a topping of melted goat cheese drizzled with honey.

To add some protein, I poached some eggs. 

Here is the delicious "Pumpkin envying" salad with poached eggs.

You can leave the eggs off- there is plenty of
protein in the pine nuts and goat cheese.

This was delicious! 

The dressing is very garlicky, but the whole meal was light for a perfect summer night. Not too heavy, and definitely not too oily- it was just right. 

If I ever wanted to do this as a side salad (not the main entree') it would yield 4 side salads.

The Hubs and I sat on the back porch listening to the French Cafe' Pandora Radio Station, ate our Melty Goat Cheese Salad with Honey and Pine Nuts, and sipped our Pinot Grigio.

Pumpkin, meanwhile, had his cat food.

La Bonne Vie Y'all!