Strawberry Pea Shoot Salad

I have a surprise for you.  I’ll give you a clue.  It’s a post.

Gah.  I have (almost) totally failed at getting back into my usual cook, shoot, eat, blog routine.  Or, in fact, even into the swing of writing.  I sit down at my desk and it’s like I’ve had a whiteboard eraser wiped over my brain – it’s just a blank.  So I go off and do something, and my neurons start buzzing like a bee caught up in a frenzy over some gorgeous flower.  So I race back to the screen aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand…nothing.  I really don’t know what the problem is.  I’ve had a terribly exciting 2 months – touring Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina, Big Breakfast Adventures, launching a podcast series, starting a new day job, and the return of the Friday Night Dinners.  Cupcakes, macaroons, time at the lake, and the longest, hottest summer Seattle can remember.  Time with friends, time alone, time to just be, and 2 Gallery Shows booked.  August has been filled with obnoxious amounts of Cherry Coke Zero and country music.  There’s been the funnest photo shoot ever with the ridiculously photographically talented Bala, plus weight-loss and disappearing back fat.  It’s been awesome.  Maybe too awesome?  Or maybe I just can’t believe I get to have the life that I do, and writing it down would make it real.  Or, maybe it would just be more accurate to say this summer ate me alive.

There’s a definite upside to having a whiteboard eraser attack your brain every time you get near the computer – and that is – {lots of} other stuff gets done.  Spring cleaning, even though it’s not spring.  Car rides to the beach.  Naps on the lawn with the “kids”.  Weeding, sorting, tidying, purging.  It’s amazing how much you can get done when there’s something else that you don’t want to do.  All I need to get me motivated to do laundry is a draft blog post sitting on the screen waiting to have words typed on it.  Changing the sheets?  Draft blog post.  Buying leather furniture, cleaning out closets, washing every blanket that ever entered the front door of my house.  Draft blog post.  It’s been quite extraordinary the amount of dilly-dallying that’s been going on over at Marmalade HQ this last month or so.  The more days that pass, the more exciting things I have to write about and the bigger the number of draft blog posts that are sitting on my dashboard gets.  And the more paralysed I become.  It’s getting rather annoying.  But the house is clean, the yard is weeded, the errands are run, the closet is stocked with new duds, a car full of stuff has found a new home down at Goodwill.  The garage is tidy, the windows are sparkling, friends have been fed, furniture has been ordered, and road-trips booked.  And un-booked.  And re-booked.  GAH.  There’s new, white, porcelain dishes in the kitchen – because you can never have too many – and a proper trash can for the compost, finally.  Even the filing got done;  and *that* almost never happens.  I’d rather poke myself in the eye with a hot poker than do filing.  Except when I have draft blog posts to write, apparently.  And don’t even ask me how many games of Sudoku I have solved on my smartphone in the last 3 weeks.  It’s been blog post procrastination central around here.

And now I am staring the next road-trip in the face, which will undoubtedly bring with it a whole slew of new images and exciting tales to share.  If I don’t get caught up, I’m gonna be in deep doo-doo.  Deep.  Plus, you all need new grub to cook up & you’re getting exactly squat from your favorite keto recipe source.  Gah.

So I determined that I was not going to let myself get up from this chair until I had written a post.  And since I have Mini-Me and The Hubs coming over for the Friday Night Dinner later, this could become a bit problematic.  So I need to type fast, and type whatever comes into my mind, and not think about all the other things that I could be doing – that need to be done – instead.  AND STOP LOOKING AT EMAIL.  Yes.  Email is like quicksand.  Quicksand, I tell you!  Gah.

Last week, because Mini-Me and The Hubs were too exhausted from their crazy month of August to come over for dinner, I invited 3 girlfriends – let’s call them Eeny, Meeny and Miny – over for the Friday Night Dinner experience.  I made up a new salad while standing right there in the produce section of my local IGA.  It was a huge success.  Crunchy, sweet and tangy all rolled into one bite.  The next day I re-tossed it with more fresh greens and a handful of extra strawberries.  Then I piled it high on hungry plates, threw a whole heap of grilled bacon on top and called it lunch.  I thoroughly recommend you make too much for dinner so you can turn it into The. Best. Bacon. Salad for tomorrow’s lunch.

I am terribly excited to introduce to you my favorite new salad ingredient:  The Pea Shoot.  I also used them in a delicious salmon dish that I’ll happily share with you if I can ever get my act together in the blogging department.

I love the way these cute little shoots pretty up a salad, and their bright flavor adds an extra-summery taste to the proceedings. Talking of summer – it’s drawing to a close, at least around these parts – so I was anxious to give them a final hurrah while I could still get them from down the road, not flown in from a far-away state. It was only right to name the whole dish in their honor.  Ladies and Gentlemen, fellow keto devotees, please welcome Strawberry Pea Shoot Salad.

I got a bit carried away in the lettuce aisle and ended up with a dazzling array of greenery.  You could use any combination that you most enjoy, but I’d advocate using spinach and at least one other type.  Just to keep things interesting.   I tossed red and green swiss chard, tat soi, arugula and spinach all together.  If time is short, grab one of those salad blends from the store.  It’ll be just the ticket.

I served this salad alongside Grilled Lemon Prawns with Coconut Cream Squash Noodles, and to say it was a success is an understatement.