From a New Book, A Salad Perfect for the Long Weekend
Pizza Friends, hello!
On Tuesday, Jenny Rosenstrach’s new book, The Weekday Vegetarians: Get Simple, made its way into the world, and it’s a beauty, filled with plant-based recipes and strategies to streamline vegetarian cooking. Think tips on how to stock your pantry with “store-bought saviors” that allow vegetarian meals to come together quickly as well as a comprehensive grocery list to get you started. Each of the recipes is tagged with “quick cleanup” or “make-ahead” or “freeze it,” and the two recipes I’ve tried have come together as advertised: “under 30 minutes.”
I started with the cover photo…
… which we all loved.
And yesterday I made the diced cucumber salad with tomatoes, watermelon, and feta. I love any melon and feta salad — the sweet with the salty just works — but adding tomatoes to the mix was something I had never done and something I really really loved.
This truly is the perfect salad to make right now as watermelon season begins to taper and while the tomatoes continue to be as delicious as ever. The dressing is simple — olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper — and as the salad sits, the dressing grows, drawing out the juices from the melon, cucumber, and tomatoes, becoming sweeter, brighter, and more savory all at once.
It is a salad that begs for crusty bread or pizza crusts or the book’s Spicy Feta Chickpea Wedges by its side. These look so good:
Friends, I am so excited by Jenny’s latest book, and I know you will love it, too. Find the watermelon-feta salad recipe below.
The Recipe: Diced Cucumber Salad with Tomatoes, Watermelon & Feta
For this recipe, you’ll need tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon, fresh mint and…
… feta. This is my favorite: Maplebook Farm Feta. Don’t go crazy trying to find it — it’s made in VT, and I can find it at the little co-ops in my area, but I’m not sure how widely distributed it is. Ideally, look to buy feta packed in brine. Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and lots of other markets sell great brine-packed feta.
Slice it thinly or crumble it up, and toss it into the salad. The dressing is olive oil + vinegar, salt + pepper. Simple!
Toss gently, then…
… transfer to a serving platter.
Love pizza and salad? Find recipes, tips, and tricks in Pizza Night 🍕🍕🥗🥗
Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Books-a-Million | Bookshop.org | Hudson Booksellers | Walmart
The salad looks very yum! We are lucky here in SE MA to have a wonderful local feta made by Narragansett Dairy in RI. It is the only feta I buy and i do buy lots of it. They also make a very good ricotta and a burrata that is quite morish.
Hello Ali,
Thank you for sharing your delicious recipe!
I made it but added celery, black cured olives and crumbled the Feta cheese. I used my cherry tomatoes from my garden. ☺️ So good!! Adding the watermelon gave a sweet taste to the salad!!