Perfect Summer Salad

I haven't posted any dinner recipes in months because I haven't been cooking lately.  Our garden has been producing a tasty variety of lettuce so we have mostly been eating salads for dinner.  We never seem to get tired of mixed fruit and nut salads.  

Here are the ingredients for our favorite summer salad:
1.  Variety of lettuce (We grow spinach, arugula, butterhead, romaine, looseleaf, oak leaf, kale and swiss chard and use a little of each in our salad)

2.  Fruits (We pick 2 fruits from strawberries, blueberries, peaches, pears and mangoes)
3.  1/2 avocado
4.  Pistachios (costly but totally worth it)
5.  Blue cheese (I know it sticks but you don't notice it when it's mixed up in a salad and it really does taste great)

5.  Sweet Italian dressing (If you're from St. Louis, you can't go wrong with Zia's!)

TIP: The key to making a great salad is dicing up all the ingredients, including the lettuce, so that you get a little bit of each ingredient on a bite :)

As a side, I also like to make a tomato salad using California Olive Ranch olive oil (it's the BEST!), fresh ground pepper and chopped basil.

Homegrown tomatoes are honestly better than store-bought.  I don't know why but they are. We had a little bit of success with our tomatoes this year.

We also have a fierce addiction to Whole Foods Olive Bread - sliced, warmed and dipped in California Olive Ranch olive oil.  Mmmmmmm.....