Caprese Salad

 

This is a recipe I featured when I did my very first live cooking segment on TV. You can check out the video here. Big thanks to Kanvas Beauty for doing my makeup and Narcissus for my dress.

  It is tomato season around here and if you make a trip to any of our local farmers markets, then you will be gifted with some of the best tasting tomatoes. I got these from Turkey Hill Farm. When you buy from a local farmer, you are not only supporting the local economy, but helping out the environment and your health. And they just taste better! These were picked at the peak of freshness. In the summer, I like to eat fresh tomatoes with breakfast, lunch, and dinner! They are high in vitamin C and are really good for you. These tomatoes are heirloom and organic. Heirloom means they are not genetically modified and organic means they were not sprayed with chemicals or fertilizers. I like to think that this is the kind of food my great-grandmother grew up eating, before things got crazy in the industrialized farming world.

Caprese salad is so easy. You will need about one pound of mozzarella, 3 tomatoes and one bunch of basil. It serves about 6. All you do is slice the tomato and the fresh mozzarella. I like to slice them as even and equal as possible. Use a serrated knife and go slow to help achieve that. And then pick and wash some basil leaves. Once they are sliced I will salt my tomato first so that salt gets all over the tomato. Then I start layering tomato, mozzarella and basil leaves over and over again. You could present this salad in several different ways. I like to make a long row, but you could make several tall stacks. Or you could chop up all the ingredients and serve in a bowl. Or you could cut up the mozzarella smaller and use cherry tomatoes and use a toothpick to make bite size appetizers for a party.

Once you have assembled the ingredients they way you want, add a tiny bit more salt and pepper.  I use sea salt and organic pepper. Then drizzle with fig vinegar. I also get my fig vinegar from Turkey Hill Farm.  It is amazing! It goes great with anything, I like to use it on salads or as a steak sauce. If you don’t have access to a fig vinegar, just use a really high quality, organic cold pressed olive oil. And that’s it! Take a bite and dive into a very yummy and healthy summer salad!