Shrimp Panzanella

I remember the great Salad revolution. When, much like chicken, the collective unconscious suddenly decided that anything put onto a bed of lettuce instantly became calorie free and like munching down on a tub of One a Day Vitamins.

And as is the human condition we took it far to the extremes with people touting the "salad crew" as being incredibly healthy and perfect and anyone who ate anything else pure evil while dropping two tubs of cheese and bacon onto a head of iceberg to make it palatable. (Iceberg is the Antichrist of the food world).

So salads became this feminine and bipolar food source. Lettuce councils would drill into your head that eating one would give you good skin, you'd instantly drop 20 pounds and live to be 150. But at the same time you were a food prude if you ordered a salad with dressing on the side instead of the 2 pound hamburger, denying yourself all of life's little joys and not really living.

I have never understood the point of moralizing food. A stick of butter isn't going to hold up a bank while a leaf of cabbage won't bathe homeless people. It's just food. If you're in the mood for a salad eat that, and if you want some french fries eat those.

It's when you start polarizing and dividing things into good and bad that something becomes forbidden fruit and one it much less likely to have any sense of moderation.

Anyway, that long intro was to introduce you to a nice light salad I found that is really tasty and perfect for summer. It also falls under my "Yay it takes about a half hour with little to no work to make" header.

This is the Shrimp Panzanella made out of, you can probably guess, shrimp, some veggies (I left out the peppers because they do evil things to me), some olives and tasty tasty homemade croutons.

The only hot element involves baking the croutons which could be done beforehand. So this is the perfect salad for a hot sticky miserable summer day.

The dressing is really light. In fact I'm thinking I might add more of the vinegar to give it a stronger kick next time, and maybe add in some lemon juice.

There ya go, tasty salad anyone can enjoy unless they hate shrimp. Then you're on your own.