Delicious

Spring is upon us! Finally — colorful foods, sunshine, jogging outside, not wearing seven layers indoor and pounding tea like it’s your job! Spring. It’s a happy time. Especially for food. You finally can put away those hot soups, stews, chilis, pasta bakes, and switch to delicate salads, with myriad colors and sharp flavors. After getting off the plane from visiting Arizona, I went to Trader Joes to get my shopping out of the way and get things to make a quick dinner, and these mini-heirloom tomatoes just popped out at me.

Heirloom tomatoes are those super colorful, awkwardly shaped tomatoes at the market. They are special because they are ‘open-pollinated’ meaning they are pollinated by the wind or by animals, not human intervention. The seeds are also harvested and passed down to grow the next heirloom tomato plant. It’s not necessarily better, but has a different taste and a different look than regular tomatoes.

This salad has the bite from the tomatoes and parsley, and the creaminess from the burrata. Burrata is an italian cheese that is made of mozarella and cream, with the outside as a solid shell of mozarella and the inside as a soft mozarella-cream mix. It’s unnnnbelivably delicious. Creamy, delicate, and pretty affordable at $4.99 for two balls at Trader Joes.

This salad is a little different in that the tomatoes aren’t sliced, but cut into smaller pieces to allow more of your favorite olive oil to get into those nooks and crannies, and have the parsley and basil stick to each piece.Try this salad out for a quick appetizers, lunch, or even dinner in under 15 minutes.

Serve with sauteed baby zuchinni, cheese, kalamata olives, and a glass of red wine!