Dill, Cucumber & Heirloom Tomato Salad

Heirloom tomatoes are beautiful, colorful gorgeous fruits. They make salads brighter and bolder. These heirloom varieties also have a historical context too, as their seeds have been passed down through several generations. Preserving their diverse varying colors and incredible flavor.

On beautiful Saturday mornings such as this, I wake up early to manage the Sara Hardy Farmers Market in downtown Traverse City. Simply, its my job to facilitate and take care of the farmers in whatever capacity I can, as well as provide market goers with the opportunity to use their SNAP benefits (Michigan Bridge Cards) to purchase food at the Farmers Market. I love this job for many reasons, but the one that tops my list is building relationships with our local area farmers. I’m able to stop by the individual stalls early in the morning when the produce is overflowing and pick out the cream of the crop while checking in with my friends. Its wonderful.

One of my morning stops is always with Russ of Shiloh’s Garden. He and his family are incredibly kind and caring people, not to mention they have a beautiful supply of fresh produce and flowers. When I buy heirloom tomatoes I try to get to Russ’ stand as early as possible because his tomatoes go fast!.. Looking at the picture above, I’m sure you can tell why. They literally are just as tasty as they are beautiful.

In these last few weeks of summer I’m still dreaming of meals that are light, healthy and packed with flavorful, seasonal produce. Dill has a flavor that is the epitome of “fresh” to me. Something about its smell just screams “toss me in a salad already!” And so, as the story goes, when the fresh dill called to me again this weekend, I went right ahead and tossed him in the salad with some garden-fresh cucumber, heirloom tomatoes from Shiloh’s Garden and chunks of feta cheese.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium cucumber, sliced into quarters
• 2 green onions, diced
• 4 heirloom tomatoes of varying color, chopped
• 1 tbsp of olive oil
• 1 tbsp of fresh dill, chopped
• Crumbled feta cheese to your liking!
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions are as simple as you’d guess. Just chop up the veggies, and stop to smell the fresh DILL (if only to hear it “scream” with freshness!) Then toss everything into a salad bowl.

Summer won’t stick around forever, so get to a farmers market & pick up that flavorful seasonal produce.

As always, keep it fresh! (and consider our friend, Dill a “fresh” asset)

love,

tricia