Simple salads for the warm weather

[Tim OL]

Moving away for a moment from the typical green lettuce based salads, what type of salads do you prefer that are quick and simple to prepare and that would be perfect for a light salad for the deck in the fast approaching warm weather.

I was looking at a Waldorf recipe last week and it seemed to be on the bland side so I put together what I thought would work a little better. I used chopped fresh dates, golden raisins, bananas, toasted macadamia nuts and kiwi on a piece of lettuce and topped it with some mandarin oranges. The dressing was 1 part mayo to 2 parts lemon yogurt.

Another salad I like is a simple cornbread salad... quite tasty really. That brings up a second part to this post. How often do you make cornbread these days and if at all, what kind of cornbread. I will usually make a southern type for this salad but I also make a honey cornbread which works just as well. A couple of days ago I made Dean Fearing's recipe which has a ton of ingredients in it. It was different but actually not bad at all. A lot of prep work though for a cornbread recipe.

Although peas are technically a vegetable, I guess, I use them quite often in or as a salad. There is a terrific edamame pea mash recipe from Roy's fusion cookbook that I like to make to go with seared sea scallops... perfect for a warm summer night on the deck with a nice bottle of white wine.

A crab remick salad is nice but for some reason I haven't made it for awhile. I am still looking for that really good shrimp salad. I also like peaches poached in Zinfandel with a yogurt topping but that may be moving out of the salad area a bit.

Any suggestions would help turn a summer period around where I far to often revert to Plan B (green lettuce salads).

Tim