Old Standby BLT, as a Salad
Serves 2

Inspiration

Who doesn’t love BLT’s? My mouth waters even thinking about fresh artisan bread, homemade mayonnaise, a juicy ripe tomato, crunchy lettuce and two slices of crisp, smoky bacon.
Have you ever had a BLT salad? Sounds less fattening and just different enough to have some fun with.
A BLT salad can be straightforward and very easy or a little bit fancy; either way it will be delicious.

Hints

1. The sharp flavors of Feta and Parmesan add an important flavor punch.
2. If you can’t find ripe, fresh and preferably organic tomatoes, postpone the salad until they are available.
3. Vinaigrette will not adhere to wet greens so dry them thoroughly.
4. Break lettuce leaves into bite size pieces. Do you really enjoy shoving huge pieces of lettuce into your mouth while vinaigrette drips down your shirt?
5. If you set out prepared ingredients you will create much better looking salads.

Ingredients

3 thick slices bacon, cut into strips
1 large, ripe red tomato
2 tender leaves Romaine, 2 leaves red leaf lettuce, 12 leaves fresh spinach; all washed, dried and broken into bite size pieces
1 small bunch fresh basil, leaves pulled off stem and torn into bite size pieces. Set aside two complete tops for garnish
2 oz. good, semi soft, moist Feta cut into chunks
1 handful shaved Parmesan
30 (about) pieces of cubed, fresh or stale artisan bread

For Vinaigrette:

1 fresh lemon
4 tbs. extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Procedure

1. Fry bacon until crisp, transfer to paper towel to drain. Save bacon fat in pan for croutons.
2. Cut tomato into thin wedges and drain them on paper towel.
3. Heat pan with bacon fat to medium temperature. Add bread cubes and fry, moving them around so they won’t burn. When they are golden brown, remove the pan from the heat. Toss a couple of more times and set aside.
4. Put greens in a bowl and toss to mix.
5. Make vinaigrette:  squeeze lemon juice onto lettuce, drizzle olive oil over lettuce, add salt and pepper and toss until vinaigrette is distributed.  Divide greens between two salad plates.
6. First put the tomatoes around the plate. Then add the bacon and the Feta chunks. Sprinkle the croutons and then the shaved Parmesan over each salad. Garnish each salad with a basil top.
7. Serve immediately.