FOODjimoto: Cool & Minty Summer Salad with Peaches

My friend Pam gave me the recipe for this salad.

She got it from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, a local newspaper, from a column written by Dorothy Reinhold, who cites the recipe as adapted from Cooking Light.

I remember when Pam made this salad for one of the Godinez get-togethers--I thought it was the best thing I'd eaten in awhile, it was so fresh-tasting and very different from what I usually make.

The recipe calls for 2 cups cooked chicken, if you've got a vegetarian or two in your family, it's easy to mix up the salad and put the chicken on top.

Make it like this for your vegetarians, or as a side salad.

Add some barbecued chicken in citrus marinade for your omnivores.

Ingredients:

Dressing:

1 cup loosely packed fresh mint leaves

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Salad:

1 cup chopped cucumber

1/3 cup chopped pecans, toasted

2 tablespoons minced red onion

3 peaches, chopped, peeled and pitted

1 cup day-old brown rice

1 cup leftover cooked green beans

red leaf lettuce

Do you have mint growing in your yard?

It's easy to grow, but tends to spread out, so best plant it in a pot or confined space.

Put the sugar and mint in a food processor or mini blender.

The instructions say to process the sugar and mint first, until the mint is finely chopped, but I think it would work just as well to blend everything together at once.

The sugar and mint didn't do that well in the mini blender, but was fine when I added all the dressing ingredients.

Add the white wine vinegar,

Fresh lemon juice,

Salt, and several grinds of the peppermill.

Blend until the mint is finely chopped.

Slice the cucumber and onions.

I thought I had a red onion but didn't, so I used green onion.

Add one cup cooked brown rice.

I used the Brown Rice Medley from Trader Joe's.

It's one of my favorites.

Add the green beans.

And the peaches.

Just like the peaches I used in Berry Best Won Ton Napoleons, add a little bit of lemon juice to keep white peaches from turning brown.

Toss all the ingredients.

But don't forget to add the pecans like I did.

They're good.

Especially if you use the Sweet & Spicy Pecans from Trader Joe's.

Serve over red leaf lettuce.

With or without the sliced chicken, the salad is delicious!

Itadakimasu!

***

My sister and her daughters are visiting from Hawaii!

Yay!

They're here for a wedding.

I'm still editing the photos, so more about the wedding on a later post.

While my sister met one of her childhood friends for lunch downtown, Paige, Hannah and I had lunch together and did some shopping in Little Tokyo.

They're fun.

We ate shabu shabu.

It didn't matter that it was a hot day, we still wanted shabu shabu.

We ate at Shabu Shabuyo on 2nd Street in LA's Little Tokyo.

You can read about our homestyle shabu shabu blog post here.

Paige got kuro buta, it looked really good.

You'll have to trust me--I didn't get a photo of the kuro buta plate.

Hannah and I got the vegetarian plate.

When my sister asked Paige if she's going to cry at the wedding, Paige said,

"I hope so."

I loved that.

It's going to be another "Paige-ism" that I'll mention at every wedding.

We went to Shabu Shabuyo because The Shabu Shabu House was closed.

I liked it, I thought it was good.

The kuro buta looked melt-in-your-mouth delicious.

She's dipping it in ponzu sauce.

The vegetarian selection had enoki mushrooms, brown mushrooms, broccoli, nappa, tofu slices, carrots, onions, baby bok choy leaves and udon noodles.

It was too much to eat.

Hannah hasn't eaten any meat in a year-and-a-half.

She's super-committed.

My choice on Friday was to cook and post something, or spend the time with my nieces.

Since I don't get to see them often enough, I made the right choice.

Love you, Paige!

Love you, Hannah!

***