Goat Cheese + Summer Foods= Delight

A couple nights ago I made two of my very favorite summer main-dish salads.

The first is watermelon, goat cheese, kalamata olives, and seared beef heart. So many excellent flavors! The beef heart is like steak, except less musky and much cheaper. (And with a lot more collagen!)

I also tried "massaged" kale for the first time. I tried it initially with dinosaur kale, which worked very nicely. This curly kale was a bit less successful. You just sprinkle it with lemon juice and work it with your hands for a couple minutes, and let it sit for 10 min. It shrinks right down and wilts into something you'd actually like to eat raw!

Before--kale from our garden

After

This one also has goat cheese, fresh blueberries, almonds (that you glaze with honey, oil, and salt in a cast iron-skillet) and a delicious homemade blueberry dressing. This is the kind of dish you can only afford to make if you've just gone blue-berry picking and gotten them for $1.25/lb.

I love summer so much--there is so much abundance. How can anyone afford to eat well without gardening and/or picking their own produce in bulk? I'm not sure we were meant to--you either go broke, undereat, or eat pretty compromised food.