I got home from school yesterday and was completely exhausted!  I sat down on the ground to snuggle with Indy for a few minutes, and the next thing I knew it was 4pm and I was waking up face down on the carpet.  Casey said he decided to let me sleep because anyone who falls asleep like that clearly needs the rest.  :)

While I was busy being passed out on the floor, Casey was busy in the kitchen making us an amazing cold vegetable salad!  I can’t take credit for it at all because it was entirely his creation, but I still wanted to get the recipe to you guys because it is DELICIOUS!  A beautiful and tasty rainbow of a salad, just in time for summer…

Casey’s Cold Vegetable Summer Salad

Ingredients:

• 3 carrots
• 1 bell pepper
• 2 ribs celery
• 1/2 large English cucumber (or 1 regular cucumber)
• 1 cup parsley leaves
• 1 green onion
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp turmeric
• 1/4 tsp Spanish paprika
• 10 grinds of black pepper

To Prepare:  Casey originally brought this to show me calling it a “knife cuts” salad.  It is definitely a great way to work on your knife skills and try to get cuts of similar shapes and sizes.  Start by peeling and dicing the carrots into small cubes.

Next de-seed and dice the bell pepper.  We used red, but you could use yellow too – orange wouldn’t give your salad quite as much “rainbow” since you already have the orange carrots.

Keep that knife going!  Chop up the celery and the cucumber and add them to the bowl.  Make sure to remove the seeds from the cucumber before dicing.

Remove the stems from about 1 cup of fresh parsley leaves, chop well, and add to vegetable mixture.

Last but not least, prepare your dressing!  In a small bowl, whisk to combine olive oil, rice vinegar, turmeric, paprika, salt, and pepper.  Pour over vegetables and stir to coat.  Refrigerate to cool, and serve!

This cold vegetable salad is so easy and simple, but don’t let that fool you – it has amazing flavor and crunch in every bite.  I think it would be a perfect side dish to take to a picnic or party because it’s easy to make ahead of time, and the flavors just get better the longer the mixture sits.  Plus you get the added bonus of knowing there would be something healthy at the party!

We had ours with a simple side of sautéed tofu.  A smaller dinner because neither one of us was all that hungry, and this was just the right amount to feel satisfied. 

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I think we will be making this salad a LOT this summer!  As soon as the weather gets warm, all I want to eat is cold vegetable and grain salads – yum.

Many thanks to Casey for a delicious salad recipe, and for sharing it on the blog  Enjoy!  :)

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