Tricolore Salad with Eggplant, Peppers, Tomatoes, and Mozzarella

This is another delicious recipe from Plenty. It's a really great, light side dish. The mix of textures is really nice - the soft eggplant and mozzarella and the crispy peppers. It seems like a lot of capers, but they get mixed in and it's just right. The cilantro adds a nice, fresh flavor on top. Can't wait to eat the leftovers for lunch!

Ingredients:

4 small eggplants, sliced into 1/2" circles

olive oil

salt and pepper

1 yellow pepper, in about a 1/2" dice

15 grape tomatoes, quartered

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

3 1/2 tbsp capers, plus 1 tbsp of the brine

5oz fresh mozzarella

1 cup roughly chopped cilantro

Squid with Watermelon and Basil

After a long weekend of lots of food, Jamie and I wanted something fresh and healthy for dinner. I saw this recipe in Simple, Fresh, Southern and immediately started drooling. Watermelon just sounded so refreshing and nice, and I love fresh calamari. It's pretty simple - you just need to have an hour or two so it can marinate. It's pretty with bright pink and green from the watermelon and basil and it tastes great. Put in more jalapeno to give it a bigger kick.

Serves 2, double it for 4
Ingredients:
kosher salt
1 lemon, halved
1/2 lb cleaned squid, cut into 1/3" rings and tentacles cut in half
4 oz seedless watermelon cut into 1x1x1/4" tiles (about 1 cup)
1/2 medium red onion, finely chopped
1/2 a jalapeno, finely chopped
a little less than 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
leaves from 2 sprigs basil, roughly chopped

Easy zucchini salad

I made myself some not so healthy pasta the other night and wanted a light side dish. I found a great way to have zucchini in a salad sans cooking. Salt tenderizes the zucchini and it's crisp and refreshing.

Ingredients:
Zucchini
Shallot
Salt
Red wine vinegar


Directions:
Slice the zucchini with a mandolin into very thin slices. Put the zucchini slices into a strainer and cover them liberally with salt (you’ll rinse it later). Toss the zucchini with the salt and let sit in the sink – they will sweat. Meanwhile, slice the shallot with the mandolin.



After about five minutes, or once you see the zucchini has tenderized, rinse it with cold water to wash off the salt. Toss the zucchini with the shallots and top with a drizzle of red wine vinegar (lemon would also work well) and some salt. Feel free to add some olive oil. Very easy, refreshing side dish/salad!