In the Kitchen: Home Chef: Spring Panzanella Salad

Hi, Everyone!

In an effort to spend less time meal planning and more time reading, I decided to give Home Chef a try. It costs less than taking the whole family to a restaurant, and it seemed like a fun way to add some new recipes to my repertoire.

Tonight: Spring Panzanella Salad with roasted vegetables and goat cheese crostini

We LOVED this meal! So, so super yum!

The instructions, um, instructed me to cut off and toss the ends of the bread loaf. Nooooooope! We don’t waste the tastiest bits of the bread, Home Chef. We just don’t. I was also instructed to cut the bread into four pieces. I didn’t. I’m a REBEL, I tell you.

I had a leftover ear of corn in the fridge, so I tossed that in the salad mix. It was an excellent idea. I also awarded myself a gold star for slicing the snap peas down the middle–doing so made my salad look downright professional. Thanks for the tip, Home Chef!

If you look closely, you can see a few tomatoes in the mix as well. Mama doesn’t serve salads without tomatoes.

I shunned the instructions one final time and tossed the pine nuts in the oven with the bread and roasted veg, because, well, the only thing better than pine nuts is ROASTED pine nuts. OM nom nom nom!

Oohh, also: if you’ve got a box grater, you can knock out those radish slices in no time. And, if you’re super brave, you can flip to the teeny grating side and grate the shallots for the dressing instead of chopping them . . . I like the texture just a bit better, and it’s faster.

If I make it again: I pretty much changed everything I wanted to as I was making this recipe, but I suppose I’d swap the crostini bread out with a whole wheat alternative.

Did my kids eat it: Nope. We didn’t share.