It is REALLY TOO DAMN HOT!

As a brief follow-up to the previous Watermelon Salad post, I thought that I would make clear two points: 1) The ease of substitutions and the liberalness that one can take and 2) How truly miserable this swampy heat makes me.

I had intended to make the Watermelon Salad over the weekend, and I had all ingredients on hand, save the watermelon and feta cheese, which would only require a 10 minute walk to my neighborhood Whole Foods, or, seeing as how I was feeling particularly lazy, a 90 second stroll down to Deluca’s on the corner of Beacon and Charles.

I procrastinated, vacillating between audibly moaning at the mercilessness of the heat and amping myself up for the epic journey down to the next block. In the end, laziness triumphed, and I made do with what I had in the house. The substitutions went as follows:

Maine Strawberries for Watermelon
Manchego Cheese for Feta Cheese
Toasted Hazelnuts for Olives
Balsamic Vinegar for Lime Juice
Omitted Onion

Everything else, namely the parsley, basil, olive oil, and salt & pepper remained the same. I suppose the two rules of thumb are: 1) Keep the ingredients similar in make-up (juicy fruit for juicy fruit, acidic element for acidic element, etc.) and 2) Make sure the flavors agree. I had olives, but didn’t feel that they would go well with strawberries, whereas hazelnuts and strawberries is one of my favorite combinations. The “official” recipe is below.

Strawberry Hazelnut Salad

Bunch of parsley, rough chop
Bunch of basil, rough chop
1 Cup Strawberries (local and in-season is infinitely tastier, as these Maine strawberries proved), cut in half
1/4 Cup Hazelnuts, toasted and rough chop
1/4 Cup Manchego Cheese (feel free to substitute just about any semi-soft-to-hard cheese)
2 Tbls. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 Tbls. Balsamic Vinegar
Salt & Pepper to taste

Toast the hazelnuts; I generally say that 200° for 5 minutes will do, but I have the most freakishly unreliable toaster-oven known to man, and routinely employ the “5-sense rule”, which is, to use your senses, as opposed to specific instructions in your cooking. Everyone’s appliances run differently, and using a little common sense (“Hmmm, it smells like something’s burning, but it still has 10 minutes to cook”) can go a long way to improving the end result. In the case of toasting nuts (which I highly and frequently recommend, as it exponentially ups the flavor output), I put my toaster oven on a low-ish setting (150° to 200°) and wait until I can JUST smell the toastiness, while standing little more than an arm’s length away. As soon as you smell it, turn the oven off, open the door, and dump the nuts off the tray so that they can begin to cool.

Meanwhile, combine the chopped parsley, basil, strawberries, and cheese in a bowl and toss well. Once your nuts are room temperature (I wouldn’t toss them in prematurely, as the heat would likely melt the cheese and wilt the greens), toss them in. Mix your olive oil and balsamic vinegar together (note: I like a heavier vinegar side on my dressing, which is the reason for the 1:1 ratio, but feel free to adjust according to your taste; it would be more common to see more olive oil) and pour on top of the salad. Add salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!