Tomato Veggie Salad (Provided photo — Yvona Fast)

The weather has been hot lately. I haven’t turned on the oven and am even reluctant to turn on the stove. When you don’t want anything hot to eat, it’s time for salads!

There are so many salads! Potato salads, pasta salads and grain salads are common summer cookout fare. Then there are salads of various greens — you can eat them with a nice baguette or add protein and carbs into the mix. And there are tomato or cucumber or bean or other vegetable salads that don’t use greens or use the minimally.

While Americans tend to think salad must have greens like lettuce, in Europe the term has a broader meaning; many salads are made from raw chopped vegetables and do not include greens. In Mediterranean cuisine, tomatoes, cucumbers and sometimes bell peppers form the base of many salads.

Salads are simple to make, so older cookbooks don’t have many salad recipes. The variety, ideas, combinations of vegetables, grains, beans, are only limited by your imagination. Mix a little oil and vinegar in the bottom of the salad bowl, add greens and other veggies, and then add other ingredients to make it a meal — cheese, cold cuts, hard cooked eggs, diced cooked chicken from yesterday’s barbecue.

Right now farmers markets, farm stands and gardens are filled with fresh produce. Nothing compares to the taste of a tomato eaten straight off the vine, fragrant, juicy and warm from the heat of the late afternoon sun. Garden cucumbers, or those locally grown and available at the farmers market, are also a far cry from their store-bought counterparts, which are waxed for better storage, watery, and lack the flavor of those freshly picked.

Before the 1950s when we started trucking vegetables around the country in refrigerated trucks, salads were a special summer treat. For those in northern climates, fresh greens were not available during the long winter months; neither were other veggies we usually put in salads, like tomatoes, peppers or cucumbers. In the South it was the opposite — fresh salad greens were a winter crop, and were not available during the long, hot summer.

Right now, the variety of fresh, locally grown greens is phenomenal. Explore the various types of greens, in a myriad of flavors and textures. Have you discovered Kallalu, a Jamaican spinach? Or Mizuna, a slightly spicy Japanese mustard? There are so many — from lettuce and cabbage varieties to dark greens like kale, peppery arugula and cress, bitter greens like frisee, radicchio, endive and chicory that go well with a sweet, creamy dressing.

Salad is a great way to get your veggies. We don’t need to be told that fresh veggies are loaded with important antioxidants and phytochemicals, not to mention vitamins and minerals. Antioxidants are plant compounds that slow the aging process and ward off disease. Yellow vegetables like carrots, yellow summer squash and peppers contain vitamins A and C. Purple veggies like red cabbage or endive contain the important flavonoid anthocyanin. Dark greens like arugula or spinach are an excellent source of important nutrients like manganese, chromium, potassium and folate.

Add protein for a main dish salad. Hard-boiled egg, crumbled feta, blue cheese or hard cheese like Swiss or Cheddar, beans, meat like ham, cooked chicken or roast beef, lunchmeat like salami or kielbasa — you have lots of options! You can mix in carbohydrates in the form of pasta or grains.

Add a gourmet touch with seasonal fruits, berries, and edible flowers like roses, nasturtiums, violets, daisies, pansies, hollyhocks, bachelor butts, sunflowers, calendula.

Choose your dressing: that magic sauce that can make or break the salad. To keep your bowl of greens healthy, go light when pouring the dressing. Vinaigrette usually has fewer calories than a creamy dressing like blue cheese or ranch. A yogurt or kefir-based dressing adds probiotic properties to your salad. Once more, imagination is the key. I often dress my tomato, cucumber or corn salads simply with plain yogurt and a little salt or feta. Think of what goes well with the veggies or greens you’re using.

Here are some recipes to get you started.

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Basic Cucumber – Tomato Salad

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Ingredients:

1 large tomato

1 medium cucumber

Few scallions, green and white parts

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 or 2 Tablespoons plain Greek yogurt

Directions:

Wash and slice or dice the tomato; wash and slice cucumber thin. Remove root ends and slice scallions. Add salt and a dash of pepper; stir in the yogurt. Allow flavors to mingle 15 or 20 minutes before serving.

There are many ways to vary this. Add feta cheese and olives for a Greek touch, or chopped hardboiled eggs for a heartier dish.

Serves 2.

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Basic Salad for Two

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Ingredients:

For the dressing:

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon or a bit more balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon mustard

1 Tablespoon olive oil

For the salad:

2 cups lettuce

2 cups other salad greens of your choice

1 or 2 tomatoes

1 Tablespoon crumbled feta cheese, optional

Other veggies, optional

Directions:

Combine dressing ingredients in bottom of salad bowl. Stir with a fork to blend.

Wash and tear lettuce and greens; toss into the dressing.

Stir in tomatoes and any other ingredients you’re using.

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Greek Spinach Salad

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Ingredients:

10 ounces fresh spinach

1 large sweet white onion, sliced thin

Several cherry tomatoes, cut in half or quarters

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup Greek yogurt, creme fraiche, or sour cream

3 ounces crumbled feta cheese

Directions:

Wash the spinach, tear into bite-size pieces and place in salad bowl. Peel the onion, cut in half, then slice into half-moon rings and add to the bowl. Rinse the tomatoes, cut them in halves or quarters, and add. Sprinkle salt over everything, and toss. Fold in creme fraiche. Garnish with feta cheese.

Serves 2- 3.

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Author of the award-winning cookbook “Garden Gourmet: Fresh & Fabulous Meals from your Garden, CSA or Farmers’ Market,” Yvona Fast lives in Lake Clear and has two passions: Writing and cooking. She can be found at www.yvonafast.com and reached at yvonawrite@yahoo.com or on X: @yvonawrites.