Summer Salad with Watermelon, Cucumber and Feta
This spring really didn’t turn out as I had planned when starting this blog in February. I had hoped to try out new recipes while cooking for my family and friends and then posting about them. Needless to say that didn’t happen due to the lockdown. Hopefully things are now looking up and I can soon get back to planned programming.
For Memorial Day weekend I ended up doing some barbeque just for myself and made an old favorite that also happens to have a funny story related to it.
The year must have been 2002 or 2003 and the financial company I used to work for was still a small company with less than 50 people. So we had the company summer picnic at a local State Park and everybody was supposed to bring a side. At that time there was British Nigella Lawson show that I was watching. Her show was where I picked up the first version of this recipe and thought - voila! something to make for the company picnic. Needless to say at that time this was way too exotic and I ended up bringing almost the whole salad back home. Lately I have been seeing different versions of this recipe pop up on food magazines and blogs so I guess it would now be a different story. To me this is the ultimate summer taste. Make sure you have a fresh ripe juicy watermelon to ensure the best taste experience. Hope you will enjoy it!
I have long since lost the original Nigella Lawson recipe which I wrote down, but the following is the way I have been making this lately. The picture is of a scaled down version as I was just making it for myself. The recipe will make about 4 servings as a side dish.
INGREDIENTS:
1/4 of a juicy ripe watermelon cubed to about 1 inch pieces
1 medium sized cucumber sliced and slices quartered
4 oz good quality Feta crumbled
6 leaves fresh basil cut into thin strips
For the dressing:
2 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
STEPS:
Combine watermelon cubes, cucumber slices and Feta grumbles in a large bowl. In a separate bowl whisk honey, lime juice and olive oil together. Pour the dressing over the salad, mix to combine and garnish with fresh basil.
Enjoy!