Cobb Salad with Rosemary Ham, Eggs and Avocado

Today I had my heart set on spinach and roasted beet salad with goat cheese and a citrus dressing. I could taste it already, but I still had to head out to the store to get spinach and goat cheese. At the store I grabbed some milk and headed over to the deli cheese case and looked for plain goat cheese, but OMG - the prices for any type of cheese are outrageous! $6 for 1/2 cup of crumbled goat cheese . . . no! Then I remembered that I still have some lettuce, mustard greens, 1/2 tomato, 1/2 avocado, 1/2 red pepper, some red onion, celery, eggs, jack cheese, and rosemary ham - Cobb salad. Bye bye expensive store - that's why I don't shop here.

Cobb Salad with Rosemary Ham, Eggs and Avocado.

Basic-8 Salad Dresing

• 2 tbs good olive oil
• 1 tbs red wine vinegar
• 1/2 tsp honey
• Kosher salt
• 5 turns on the black pepper mill
• 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 pinch* granulated garlic 
• 1 pinch* herbs de province

*Use the thumb and index finger.

Salad Ingredients

• 1-2 handfuls of mixed greens
• 2-3 leafs of green or red leaf lettuce, torn into bite-size pieces
• 1 leaf mustard greens, cut into small pieces (optional)
• 1/2 tomato, diced
• 1/2 red pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 celery stalk, sliced
• some red onion, thinly sliced
• 2 hard boiled eggs, cut into eights
• 1/2 avocado, diced
• 2 slices of rosemary ham (or turkey), cut into thin strips
• sprinkle of chives or freshly chopped parsley

Combine the first 6 salad ingredients and toss with most of the dressing. Divide into 2 bowls and arrange the eggs, avocado, ham, and cheese on top of the greens, drizzle with the remaining dressing and sprinkle with chives or parsley.

I served it with a freshly baked whole wheat roll that was still warm and crispy.

Enjoy.

Wikipedia described the creation of the Cobb salad in part as "He browsed the refrigerator for ingredients, and chopped them up finely" which means to me 'whatever you have, as long as there are greens, tomato, avocado, cheese, and eggs - that's close enough to a Cobb salad for me'.