Savory Watermelon Salad from Alicia Pope

/

"Good food cannot be this simple," I thought, reading Alicia's recipe. There's, like, no cheese in here. Like, at all. Who eats like this? (No one with my thunder thighs, that's for sure.)

It's worth mentioning that I have always strongly asserted that cheese is the gravity of the food world, and without it sandwiches will just fall apart. Chaos will ensure. We'll all get raptured. Or ruptured. Or something. Too bad my beloved food glue is always wrapped in plastic. 

DSC_0655.jpg

I digress. When a contributor as amazing as the lovely Alicia Pope of Eat Your Way Clean sends you a recipe, you dive in! Especially when it's both a Meal Without Plastic and damn near effortless.

I had to laugh though, reading the recipe. Not only is this surprisingly delicious and addictive salad very easy to turn into a meal free of plastic ingredients, especially for those of us with herb gardens, it is also free of the following: 

DSC_0667.jpg

  • Gluten Free

  • Soy Free

  • Dairy Free

  • Nightshade Free

  • Grain Free

  • Nut Free

  • Refined Sugar Free

  • Skunk Free

  • Kardashian Free

Aaaaand it's vegan, to boot. 

DSC_0698.jpg

Whew! So what actually IS in this pretty little dish? A lot of tasty, healthy goodness. But some of which I didn't own. Like avocado oil. (Shout out to Whole Foods for carrying that simply packaged glass and cork EVO!) And shiso. What the hell was a shiso? Fortunately, Alicia's recipe had all the answers to all my stupid questions, so I trotted out to the garden to pick some herbs to replace the shiso. 

DSC_0658.jpg

My favorite part about this recipe is that it's pretty much impossible to screw up. I literally put all those different herbs in there, expecting disaster. Or rapture. Whichever. 

Neither happened. Instead, within 20 minutes of taking the photos of those ingredients, I was happily sitting on my scorching hot front steps (fall arrives on its own time in Charleston) munching on this amazing watermelon salad. 

It's just so stupid good. HOW. This defies my understanding of food.

DSC_0670.jpg

It's time to say farewell to summer for like, the next three months, so get yourself a watermelon from the farmers market and make this. You won't regret it!! 

Savory Watermelon Basil Salad from Eat Your Way Clean

http://eatyourwayclean.com/savory-watermelon-basil-salad/

http://eatyourwayclean.com/savory-watermelon-basil-salad/

To end on a preachy note: the average American generated 4.4 pounds of trash PER DAY in 2013 according to EPA archives. And guess what? Things apparently do not biodegrade in landfills. Now, imagine if everyone ate 3 plastic packaging free meals a week. Imagine if food companies stopped using non-biodegradable materials. How would it change the shape of litter? Of food? Of us? Imagine if we all composted? Plastic is a petroleum-based product. It doesn't recycle well. And it never biodegrades. And there will be more of it than fish in the ocean by 2050. It's time to make some changes, my loves.