Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Salad with Thousand Island Dressing

Ole Sweetie-Pi and I went out to dinner a while back and one of the salad offerings was a wedge of lettuce with bacon and tomato with a choice of dressing.  It was such a delicious and simple idea that I decided to recreate it at home.

My salad wedge was bathed in bleu cheese, but Ole Sweetie-Pi fell back on his favorite, thousand island.  I've only had the bottled stuff, and while it's okay, I'm pretty happy to pass it up for something more piquant.  However, there's no way on this planet he's going to even try bleu cheese dressing (he can't stand that gorgeous aroma that draws me in), so I begrudgingly went with the thousand island.

Man, there is absolutely no comparison!  This dressing is full bodied, tangy, and just plain delicious.  I didn't know what I was missing.  Every now and again I make a  cooking discovery that makes me sit up and take notice and this was one of those times.

The salad part is easy enough.  Just a head of lettuce, outer leaves discarded if they look iffy, and then the head cut into half (cut from top to bottom, not across the middle) and then at least into half again, depending on the size of the head.  I think I ended up cutting my head of lettuce into six wedges.  Rinse under cold running water, and set on paper towels to absorb the moisture. 

Fry up several pieces of bacon; if you like a lot of bacon, figure two slices each.  After thoroughly cooked,  set on a couple of paper towels to drain off the excess fat, and then crumble and set aside. 

Dice up some firm ripe tomatoes.  I removed the pulp and seeds from mine because I don't like my salad all mushy, but it's personal choice.  If it doesn't offend you, there's no harm in leaving it.

Put your salad wedge on a plate, pour a generous amount of dressing over the wedge.  Sprinkle with reserved bacon crumbles and diced tomatoes. 

Thousand Island Dressing

1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup chili sauce **
1/4 cup minced pimiento-stuffed green olives
1 tablespoon minced green bell pepper
1 tablespoon minced onion
1 hard-cooked, boiled egg, peeled and then finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon hot red pepper sauce (like Tabasco)

Mix all ingredients, cover, and chill several hours.

**Too late I discovered I did not have any chili sauce in the house (it's something we rarely use) so I had to stop and make my own.  I wrote down the ingredients on a scrap piece of a paper but now that I want to find the link to credit the recipe, I can't find it, so my apologies to the originator.  Let me give you what I have, and my assurances that this chili sauce is good!  Man, it would make a terrific base for shrimp cocktail sauce. 

No picture, alas, as it was just a red sauce in a pan.

Chili Sauce

1 32-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
1 medium onion, diced
1/4 cup diced green pepper
1 garlic clove, diced
1 small red pepper, seeds removed, diced**
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
1/2 cup vinegar
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

Add all in a medium sized sauce pan.  Boil 30 minutes.  Best after its allowed to sit and ripen for a bit, I think.

**The recipe just said red pepper, and I'm assuming it was a sweet red bell pepper, which I used, not a red chili pepper. 

Pepper Bean Salad

I receive a terrific catalog in the mail from the Penzey spice people and they typically have some very tasty recipes. This is not a commercial for them, but in my opinion, if you want that little something that makes a big difference, try some really fresh spices in your cooking. The flavors are much more vibrant.

Their last catalog featured a pepper bean salad that I couldn't wait to try the moment I saw it, plus I had some fantastic Smoked Serrano Sea Salt that I had won from Girlichef when she was having a giveaway. I felt this would be the perfect recipe to try it out in and I was right. This is one mighty powerful salt! It's nothing like that wimpy stuff you probably have in your salt shaker right now. The smoked serrano gives it a little kick and the salt flavor is assertive. For me (a spice wimp) a little goes a long way, but I liked it!

This pepper bean salad (also called Texas Caviar, I believe) has a ton of flavor, texture, color, goodness. There is a fiesta going on in your mouth when you eat this. You will want to do the tango and the cha cha when you eat this.

Pepper Bean Salad

1 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 15-ounce can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 15-ounce can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 15-ounce bag frozen super sweet niblet corn or 2 cups fresh corn-on-the-cob kernels
1 red onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped

Dressing

1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon Aleppo pepper (I swapped this out for 1 teaspoon of the Serrano sea salt)
1 teaspoon ground pepper
1 teaspoon sea salt (see above)
1/4 cup canola oil (I use grape seed oil)
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
2 limes, juiced (about 1/4 to 1/3 cup)
1 1/2 teaspoon sugar (my addition)

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients except those for the dressing. (After I rinsed and drained the beans, I left them in a colander so they could continue to drain while I cut up the vegetables and then added them to my bowl.)

In a jar with a tight fitting lid, combine all the dressing ingredients and shake well. Just before serving add the dressing to the salad and mix gently, but thoroughly.

Now, I don't like cilantro. I want to; I think I should like it; and I buy it with the expectation that I'm going to like it this time. I shopped up maybe a tablespoon of it as fine as I could get it, and added it to the salad. Know what? Still can't stand the stuff. Now I have to go through the salad and pick it out speck by speck.

Serves many. I'm going to be eating this for lunch next week, I think; but it's so good (except for that pesky cilantro), I'm looking forward to this! I think it can only get better as it sits. YUM!