Cobb Salad

A yummy salad recipe to help you clean out your fridge. Just about anything could go in this salad. I will put the recipe I found but below, under "My Experience" you will see that I did not follow it to the tee and just used what I had. On the plus side, salad means I do not have to cook which is perfect in this heat!

The Recipe:
1/2 head iceberg lettuce, cored and shredded
1/2 head romaine lettuce, chopped
1/2 bunch watercress, some of the stems trimmed, chopped
2 oz, blue cheese, crumbled
6 strips cooked bacon, roughly chopped
3 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes
2 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded and cut into 1/2"cubes
1 boneless skinless chicken breast, cooked and cut into 1/2" cubes
1 avocado, peeled, pitted and cut into 1/2" cubes
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 tbsp. minced chives

The Dressing:
3/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
3/4 tsp. dry mustard
1/2 tsp. Worcestershire
1/4 tsp. sugar
1 clove garlic, mined
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1. Make the dressing: combine the canola oil, olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice, mustard, Worcestershire, sugar, and garlic in a blander. Puree the ingredients to make a smooth dressing and season with salt and pepper. Set the dressing aside (or refrigerate, covered, for up to 1 week).

2. Make the salad: On a large platter, combine the lettuces along with the watercress.  Arrange the blue cheese, bacon, eggs, tomatoes, chicken, and avocado on top of the greens in neat rows. (Alternatively, you could toss everything together in a bowl.)

3. To serve, drizzle salad with dressing, season with salt and pepper, and top with chives.

Serves 4-6

My Experience:
So cobb salad is yummy but I only used this recipe as a guideline and for the dressing (which I also totally didn't follow... oops).

Dressing: I didn't have red wine vinegar and did not feel like buying a bottle simply for this recipe so I used balsamic vinegar which was still really good. Makes a great dressing for any salad!

Greens: I didn't use watercress because I didn't have any. Instead, I used a lettuce from my in-laws' garden which looked similar to what you would find in a mixed green salad (to be honest, I am unable to name the exact kind it was). I also used romaine and iceberg like the recipe called for, but only because I happened to have it. USE WHAT YOU HAVE! Spinach would also be nice to mix in.

Cheese: We are not HUGE blue cheese fans so I grated some swiss cheese, simply because that is what we had. I am sure any kind would work. If it crumbles, great. If not, grated works too, or chunks.

Bacon: Although bacon would have been FABULOUS, I was too lazy to cook some. Would be a good salad to have for supper after you have a nice brunch with some bacon.

Eggs: That I did because, well, you can't really have a cobb salad without eggs. And perfect timing because mine were getting close to the expiry date so the meal helped me use them up. PS: eggs are easier to peel when they are warm, but they are better in the salad cold. Might want to plan this part out.

Tomatoes: I put some in my boyfriend's salad but not mine because I do not like tomatoes. So I only used a bit of one tomato.

Chicken: Although chicken would be good, we really wanted ham. So we bought one of those hunks of ham and just cubed some of it for the salad. Leftovers will be good for sandwiches.

Avocado: A must! But I only used about 1/4 of an avocado per person. Depends how much you want.

Additional items: I also added cucumber and mushrooms, both sliced. I had some in the fridge that I wanted to use up. Mixed both in with the greens on the bottom layer.

So there are all the places where I strayed from the original recipe. Still REALLY good and a nice salad to heat on a hot night (did I mention there was a crazy heat wave here and I did not feel like cooking?).