marinated watermelon and tomato salad

My sister shared some salad with me.  She found the recipe in a magazine called Real Simple.  It was on the cover and caught the eye of her daughter.  It tasted great so I asked for the recipe and vowed to take a picture of it and blog about it before I had finished it off.  This salad has some ingredients that I would never have thought to try together.  Watermelon and tomato.  Who would have thought? 

The colors were beautiful.  The red of the watermelon and the yellow/orange of the cherry tomato is such a happy color combination.  I just needed to decide how to do a picture of it that does it justice.

Nikole's handcrafted pottery bowl on tan?

Small white dish on green?

Glass salad plate on blue?

stack of glass plates on wood?

Look at those colors!

marinated watermelon and tomato salad

10 cups watermelon, cubed
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1 1/2 pounds tomatoes, chopped or cherry tomatoes
1/2 small red onion
1/2 cup basil, freshly torn
2 Tbsp olive oil
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Combine the watermelon and the lime juice and allow to stand at room temperature for 15 minutes.  Add the remainder of the ingredients and serve or refrigerate until ready to serve. 

caprese salad

Insalata Caprese (Caprese Salad) is a family favorite and this was our last chance to have have this amazing salad this season with tomatoes from the garden.

Caprese is a traditional salad of Italy.  It had its origin from the Island of Capri off Naples, Italy and in Italy it is most often serves as an appetizer.

It has few ingredients: vine ripened tomatoes, fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese and basil.  These three ingredients are layered and then drizzled with olive oil and a sprinkle of sea salt.  Although it is not done in Italy in the United States Caprese is often made with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar added and that is the way that we had ours today.

 This very colorful salad with its green, white and red is reminiscent of the Italian national flag:

tricolore

Caprese salad

fresh tomato, we used paste tomatoes from the garden
fresh mozzarella cheese (buffalo if available)
basil leaves fresh from the garden
olive oil
sea salt
pepper
balsamic vinegar (optional)

Thinly slice the cheese and the tomatoes and layer with the basil leaves.  Drizzle with small amount of olive oil.  Salt and pepper. Drizzle with small amount of balsamic if using.