This is a classic Salvadoran salad and a staple of our everyday diet. I love this salad because the ingredients are so fresh and crunchy. The lemon juice adds the perfect amount of acidity and flavor. It also reminds me of my paternal grandmother and the way she prepared it. She enjoyed going to the market and selecting the sweetest, most ripe tomatoes and crisp lettuce. I get nostalgic when I think about her cooking. This salad is traditionally served at lunchtime as part of a complete meal with rice and either a meat, seafood, or vegetable entrée.

Green Salad

-Serves 4-6

Ingredients 

• 3 cups shredded iceberg lettuce (bite-sized pieces)
• 12 slices of firm but ripe large tomato
• 24 thin slices of cucumber
• 24 thin slices of radish
• 1 cup watercress sprigs (no long stalks)
• 3 lemons each cut in wedges
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Arrange the lettuce in a large serving bowl, then garnish with the tomato slices, cucumbers, radishes, and watercress sprigs.

Before serving, squeeze the lemon juice on top, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

These days have been warmer than usual, and I felt the heat especially intense because my A/C was broken for five days, including the holiday, and I –working from home- have been literally melting, with all the windows open and no intention to cook anything in the stove. This, as you may imagine, can be problematic if you are a food blogger, like I am, and need to be cooking stuff all the time!

Talking to my mother about this over the phone, got her inspired to create a dish for these hot Spring and Summer days. As soon as I mentioned what was going on, she knew what she wanted to prepare (that’s how the head of a chef works!), ran to the grocery store, bought chicken legs and breasts, some vegetables, charcoal, and decided to prepare grilled chicken with a tropical salad. She lives in an apartment that doesn’t have a grill, but once she has a recipe idea in her mind, nothing stops her…and certainly not that little detail. The first thing she made, back home, was to marinate the chicken in a Ziploc bag. Carefully, she sprinkled a little coarse salt on the chicken pieces, put them in the bag, and added an amazing ingredient that we have recently discovered: World Harbors Lemon Pepper & Garlic Marinade and Sauce. So easy to use! She just closed the bag and stored it in the fridge to give enough time for the chicken to infuse with the flavors of the marinade. In the meantime, she prepared a salad with all her favorite Latin American comfort foods. She packed the salad, the chicken, a bottle of iced water, forks and knives, and her ever-present camera, and headed to the park!

Lighting the fire and getting everything ready was just a matter of minutes. Then, after the chicken was patted dry, and the marinade discarded, she began to cook, and used more of the bottled marinade to baste the chicken to keep it moist. After about 30 minutes, lunch was ready!

I wish I had been there to enjoy the outdoorsy day with her, eating that nourishing meal full of color and flavor. There’s something magical about eating between greenery and silence, don’t you agree? Now I know exactly what to do for lunch on those extremely hot summer days. If you want to try my mom’s recipe, follow the instructions above for the chicken, and to make the beautiful salad, here’s how:

2 cups cooked black beans –or kidney beans, or garbanzo beans… your choice- (canned is fine)
1 cup grape tomatoes, quartered
1 cup avocado, chopped
1 cup fried ripe plantain, chopped
¼ -1/2 cup red onion, finely diced
2 tablespoons parsley leaves, chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, finely chopped (optional)
Lime juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, season, and mix carefully. Put in the fridge.

Once you go to the store and buy your World Harbors marinade, make sure you check the bottle because you could be one of the lucky six people to get the Golden Label which means you’ve won an exotic vacation to either Maui, Fiji, Tahiti, Cabo, New England or a trip for a tropical cruise!

Another chance to win big with World Harbors can be found on their Facebook page via the Adventure sweeps where the Grand Prize winner will received two roundtrip plane tickets and a runner up will get a $500 gift card for a weekend getaway hotel stay. Click here to enter that sweeps.

May the summer fun begin already!!

Disclosure: This post is part of a sponsored series to develop recipes using Mizkan products. All opinions are our own.

All images ©SpanglishBaby, Ltd

Summer is over, but the craving for salads isn’t. I just crave heartier salads that can take me through the hectic day and that my daughter will also love.

For this month’s Mizkan Cooking Challenge the five participating bloggers had to come up with a Favorite Light Recipe using a Nakano rice vinegar™as an ingredient. It really was easy because their seasoned rice vinegars can be splashed onto so many simple dishes to enhance their flavor. I chose to use the Nakano Rice Vinegar with Roasted Garlic to blend in with the robust flavors of the roasted corn, mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, avocado and cilantro that make up this salad I tossed together with so many of my girl’s favorite ingredients that she gobbled it up!

Recipe: Roasted Corn, Mozzarella and Avocado Salad

Ingredients

-16oz bag of frozen roasted corn (or you can roast fresh corn yourself if you have time for that)
-1 pint cherry tomatoes
-8oz mozzarella cheese
-2 Hass avocados
-1 cilantro bunch, chopped
-1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
-2tbs Nakano Seasoned Rice Vinegar Roasted Garlic
-cayenne pepper to taste

-salt and pepper to taste
Directions


Empty the corn, mozzarella, halved cherry tomatoes, sliced avocados and chopped cilantro all into one bowl.

In a small bowl, mix the olive oil with the Nakano Seasoned Rice Vinegar and pour on top of the salad mixture to coat.

Sprinkle some cayenne to pepper to taste. I like adding a lot of it, but my girl doesn’t like spicy foods, so I add it to my own serving.

Salt and pepper to taste and mix to coat all the ingredients.

Cut up some ciabatta or baguette and serve immediately.

This is not a salad you want to prepare too much in advance because the cilantro wilts and the avocado browns quickly. But, it’s so easy to prepare that you can make it as soon as the craving hits!


Get even more Favorite Light Recipes inspiration when you check out the recipes (with video included!) that these Latina food bloggers created. Just click on the badges below.

And visit the Nakano Facebook and Twitter pages where they are always posting great recipes and quick easy splash-on tips with your favorite seasoned rice vinegar as a healthy alternative.

Oh, and here’s a behind-the-scenes pic with my little helper. She loves to pose with the ingredients!


Disclosure: This recipe and post was made possible thanks to the sponsorship from Mizkan Americas.