Sometimes we plan meals and sometimes we don’t. This was a day where we didn’t. At the farm, my mom said she could throw together a salad. Sounds good. We had no idea what we were in for a couple hours later.

Inside from the extreme heat, we were ready for a break and sustenance. Debby had a beautiful spread set out for us to create our own salad. Mixed lettuce greens, freshly shelled garden peas, asparagus spears, diced red onion, blue cheese crumbles, perfectly hard-boiled farm eggs, shredded rotisserie chicken, white chocolate blueberry rustic bread croutons, and homemade ranch dressing. I took a double take at the croutons. The bread is super tasty, I know that. But as croutons on a salad? I don’t generally like sweet things in my salad…fresh fruit, dried fruit, sweet dressings…no. But the croutons? Yes, absolutely yes! The salad was outstanding!

That night when Matt and I got home we harvested this beauty from raised beds in our front yard.

This, my friends, is iceberg lettuce. Specifically, a variety called Crispino. We wanted to try growing iceberg to see if it had better flavor than from a grocery store, and it does. So, if you’re going to have iceberg lettuce, let it be this!

What better for iceberg than a wedge salad? But, not any wedge. This one was sprinkled with lovely little gems. Gems consisting of fresh garden snow peas, just harvested carrot, a lovely Spring turnip, chopped parsley, torn tarragon, blue cheese from Faribault, MN, and tomato (from Dakotamart because it’s just too early for tomatoes, but you can’t have a wedge without them!).

To finish it off, Matt made this amazing blue cheese dressing and we finished it with crisp bacon. Yes.