Simple Grilled Summer Salad

I love summer for about 1000 reasons, but one of my faves is summer cooking. It's mostly on the grill and includes farm-fresh ingredients. In Top-Chef quick-fire fashion, I typically make my meals from whatever I have - no recipe required. Again, another reason why I'm a farmbox lover. This week I had fennel and corn on hand. Brushing both with olive oil and a little salt, I tossed them on the grill. Opting for a salad - surprise, surprise - the corn and fennel gave me the crunch I crave. A good salad to me always includes crisp greens, a tasty dressing, a lean protein and something crunchy like celery, cucumber, peppers, wasabi peas or nuts. I steer clear of hard-to-chew, salad-killers like broccoli or cauliflower unless they are totally chopped.

Lucky for me I always have wild salmon in the freezer. I'm a mail-order fish fanatic - read more about that here. Since it was late in the afternoon, I simply thawed it in less than an hour by submerging my sealed wild Alaskan in cool water. I brushed it with olive oil, sprinkled on a little salt and threw that on the grill too.

I tossed the whole thing with my Basil Vinaigrette, paired it with a tomatillo gazpacho, a cold Paletas on ice and texted Mark to get the hell home fast. He was so impressed that he called the next day to thank me and said I was becoming the new Martha Stewart or a younger "sexy" Giada. For this one, I opted for Giada. But for this one, I'm so Martha.

HEARTFUL RECIPE - One of our real food recipes that focuses on veggies, protein, healthy fats and/or healthy carbs and doesn't include gluten, dairy, soy, refined sugar, corn or peanuts.