I was having some ladies over for dinner and we were having some smoked chicken sandwiches- needed an all around good veggie salad to go with it- why not try this little gem?

I had some romaine on hand so I chopped that up along with this lovely lettuce array that I got out of my tiny garden.

I love eating chopped salads because I like that you can scoop all the vegetables and you get all the flavors in one bite.

I don’t like chopping though- so this was a huge step for me-

Especially when I was done and the entire bowl flew out of the fridge and ended up on the floor.

Literally about one minute after I finished… back to chopping.

We were having a bit of an italian bbq sauce on the sandwich, so I opted for the basil balsamic vinaigrette for the dressing because it sounded good.

Look at all this basil…

When it gets whirled, it turns into this ugly beast- but it still smelled good.

On the plate it looks like this?

It was fine.  I suppose since it’s called a vegetable lovers salad I can’t complain about the lack of protein, but I can’t help think that it needed a little something… other than salt.  Which it definitely needed.

I did have left over basil and the next day made the same dressing (with more salt) and put it on penne with roasted red peppers, smoked mozzarella, smoked chicken and arugula- It was REALLY good- so I’m still glad I made it.  Next time I’ll add some cheese and meat.