Big Salad with Corn Bread Croutons and Buttermilk Dressing
I’ve been on a bit of a corn bread kick lately. Meaning I’ve made two in the past week. The first was to go with black bean soup, and I forgot a key ingredient. It was OK, but not stellar. I figured I could resurrect it as croutons – which worked just fine. Just cube, toss in a bit of oil and bake, and you have croutons with far more character than those made out of plain old white bread.
Check me out, not panicking over the fact that I have maybe a thousand (probably not) friends I haven’t met yet coming over tomorrow. Those of you who are among the potluck attendees, be warned: there are bikes and boots and jackets and reusable shopping bags and a shelf of surplus cookbooks in the front foyer. I have not washed the walls (properly) in eons because at this point it’s easier to just paint the house. The hundred year old house is self-dusting – that is, it produces bunnies and rhinos in all corners (Lou helps) at all times, even right behind me when (if) I do dust. The back yard has turned into a mud bog from all this rain, on patches of lawn that now have no grass – a permanent result of Lou and W potty training at the same time. We cleared out our garage a few weeks ago, and the community clean-up is next week, and meanwhile we have an old fridge and enough other (now soggy) assorted junk waiting in the back yard to possibly qualify us as hoarders. (Are you really a hoarder if you’re trying to get rid of stuff, though?) And yes, there is only one bathroom.
I was on traffic on the early show this morning, and dragged myself through the afternoon. My 13 year old niece wanted to come sit on the counter and talk about boys tonight, and so she did, and she wanted to make cilantro dip – something she had tried at the farmers’ market on a school trip today – but we couldn’t figure out the recipe. So we made chocolate chip cookies, and did something with some of the dough that I’ll tell you about tomorrow, after our creations have set.
For dinner we nibbled and ate salad. I’m not bothering with measurements here, except perhaps in the dressing. Because really, it’s just a salad. I think it would do very well with a ripe avocado, and perhaps topped with a skewer of grilled shrimp.
Green Salad with Corn Bread Croutons
influenced by The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, by way of Smitten Kitchen
corn bread, cut into big cubes
canola or olive oil
ripe tomatoes
roughly torn fresh lettuce, such as Bibb, butter or Boston
bitter greens, such as arugula
a bit of purple onion or sweet onion, finely chopped or sliced
buttermilk-lime dressing (below)Preheat oven to 350°F. Scatter the corn bread in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet, drizzle with oil and bake for about 10 minutes, until the pieces are pale golden.
Assemble the salad, and drizzle with dressing just before serving.
Buttermilk-Lime Dressing
3/4 cup buttermilk, or half milk, half plain yogurt
juice of a lime (2-3 Tbsp)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp honey
1/4 cup torn fresh basil
1/4 cup torn fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 green onions or a small chunk of purple onion, chopped
salt to tasteBlitz everything in the food processor or blender until well combined.
May 27 2011 | salads | 15 Comments »
