Food Should be Pretty

So here's the first of the missing posts from last week! We went to our favorite farmers' market the Saturday before last and picked up a couple of items from Sanford-based Waterkist Farm, which grows produce hydroponically. You cannot imagine how beautiful the greens looked! Maybe I'll snap a picture this week when we go to show you. I've never seen such beautiful lettuce.

Anyway, there were some colorful tomatoes that caught my eye and I just had to have them!

That's right ... rainbow cherry tomatoes! Aren't they gorgeous?

I don't eat a lot of the rarer colors of fruits and vegetables (mainly vegetables) like purple carrots, white asparagus and so on. So when I saw these little beauties, I jumped at the opportunity to make a colorful dish.

While we were at that stand, we also picked up a whole container of dijon mustard microgreens. Microgreens are plants that are slightly more mature than sprouts but obviously still very early in the growing phase. I haven't done extensive research, but some people say that they have a higher concentration of vitamins and minerals at this young age. 

Whether that's true or not, they certainly are cute things to put in my mouth!

That afternoon, I went to get my hair color touched up and started talking to my stylist (who also happens to be a trained chef) about what we bought. He had a great idea ... roast them up for a salad and reduce down some vinegar to drizzle over top. Be sure to include something sweet, something crunchy as well.

It sounded like genius to me and who am I to question someone who knows so much about food?

I washed those little rainbow suckers, patted them dry, drizzled them with some olive oil and popped them in the oven. They remind me of those sheets of candy passing through Willy Wonka's factory in the intro to the original movie. 

I chopped some pistachios and grabbed a few dried cranberries from the pantry to sprinkle on. Magnifique! The salad was amazing. The reduced vinegar was nicely acidic, the olive oil smoothed everything out, the tomatoes were extremely juicy and the textures of the dried fruit and nuts were a great balance!

(Am I watching too much Chopped?)

It's possible that I roasted the tomatoes a little longer than I should have because they were juuuust starting to break down past where I wanted them, but even if that's the case, they still tasted incredible.

I didn't used to be much of a salad person, but I think between my tastes developing more and me simply realizing that a lot of restaurant salads are poo, I've come to enjoy a good homemade salad.

And remember, the main goal here is to add one of each of the following: salt, acid, fat, crunch.

This gives you a balanced dish. Most fruits and vegetables are already sweet because of their natural sugars, so the aim is to complement them with contrasting flavors and textures. Switch ingredients out as you wish and make a beautiful spring salad of your own!