Grilled Summer Corn and Heirloom Tomato Salad

I was walking through the aisle at Whole Foods the other day, looking for inspiration for dinner and saw these free recipe cards hanging over by the corn. I made it for lunch yesterday and it was VERY tasty. A true keeper.

4 ears grilled corn on the cob
1 C chopped heirloom tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped red onion
1 jalepeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1 T extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp lime juice
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground black pepper
1/8 tsp chipotle chile powder (optional)
3 T chopped cilantro

Cut the corn off the cob by holding the corn lengthwise on a cutting board and slicing the kernels off carefully with a sharp knife, taking care not to cut any of the cob off with the corn. (you should have about 3 cups of kernels). Combine the corn with the tomatoes, red onions, and jalepeno peppers in a large bowl. Toss with oil, lime juice, salt and pepper. Stir in the chipotle chile powder, if using. Fold in the chopped cilantro and serve.

Fattoush Salad

One of my current favorite salads is at a place called "Blue Barn" on Chestnut Street, in the Marina District of San Francisco. It is called a Fattoush, which is essentially a bread salad, Arabic style. You know, a way to use up stale pita bread, the way the Italians do with their old bread in Panzanella. Blue Barn uses romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, red onions, scallions, chickpeas, nicoise olives, feta, mixed herbs and crispy pitas, with a champagne-sumac vinaigrette. I crave it regularly.

Well, I had a hankering for this salad the other day and tried to remember what went inside, and threw this together. It was so tasty. Here is the picture of my leftovers the next day when, unfortunately, the pita chips were all gone already. It was still really good, though!

The ingredients were:
Romaine lettuce
Halved grape tomatoes
Chopped Kalamata olives
Chickpeas
Crumbled feta
Sliced cucumbers
Sliced red onions
Roughly chopped parsley
Balsamic vinaigrette
Broken pita chips (be generous!)

I used amounts that just looked right to me. You definitely want the vegetables to be present in every bite. This is not a mostly-lettuce type dish.

Do you have a favorite salad? Please share! 'Tis the season with all this great spring and summer produce aplenty!