Lettuce Salad -- What the Garden Gave Us This Week

Week 259. Mason's science fair — another first place, studying soil composition now

The kitchen continues its work. Every week, the stove is lit and the meals are made and the family gathers at the table — a table that now holds four people, two dogs, and the accumulated weight of six years of cooking through everything life has thrown at this family. The table holds. It always holds.

The rhythm of this life — Tom\'s morning coffee, my evening cooking, Mason\'s questions, Lily\'s horses, Hank\'s slow decline, the garden\'s steady production — is the rhythm I chose. Not the rhythm I was given. Cancer gave me a different rhythm: infusion, crash, recover, repeat. Divorce gave another: manage, endure, rebuild, repeat. But this rhythm — cook, eat, love, repeat — this one I chose. This one I built. And it plays in the kitchen every night, the same song with new verses, the same recipe with small variations, the same life getting better by degrees so small you only notice them when you look back and see how far you\'ve come.

I made food this week that reflects where I am: garden harvest salad. The food is the evidence. The food is always the evidence — of who I am, of what I\'ve survived, of the people I feed and the love I put on plates. The recipe is the record. The kitchen is the archive. And I am the cook, standing at the stove, stirring, waiting, serving, and beginning again tomorrow.

Mason came home with another first place ribbon — soil composition this year, because of course it was — and I stood in the garden pulling lettuce and thinking about how the ground gives back what you tend. That felt right for tonight. The garden has been steady this week when everything else has felt big and full, and this salad is exactly what it needed to be: honest, fresh, from the earth we’ve been watching Mason study all season. Some weeks call for something elaborate, and some weeks the garden just hands you dinner and you say thank you.

Lettuce Salad

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 10 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 8 cups fresh lettuce, torn or chopped (romaine, green leaf, or a mix)
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 cucumber, thinly sliced
• 1/4 red onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup shredded carrots
• 1/4 cup radishes, thinly sliced
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon honey
• Salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Prep the greens. Wash and thoroughly dry the lettuce. Tear or chop into bite-sized pieces and place in a large salad bowl.
2. Add the vegetables. Top the lettuce with cherry tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, shredded carrots, and radishes.
3. Make the dressing. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together olive oil, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, salt, and pepper until well combined.
4. Dress and toss. Drizzle the dressing over the salad just before serving. Toss gently to coat all the vegetables evenly.
5. Serve immediately. Plate the salad and serve fresh. Season with additional salt and pepper as desired.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 115 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 10g | Carbs: 7g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 95mg