Cold, Composed Dinners (perfect for summer!)

So, the other dinner-making experiment I've been trying this summer - aside from having my kids help me make it - is having "cold, composed dinners" on occasion.

The idea behind these is simple: you have a variety of foods, mostly bite-sized, that taste good cold.  You want a protein or two, several kinds of produce, maybe some dips, something pickled, some nuts, some dried fruits, some crackers . . . and you let each person pick themselves up the bits that they like best.

Hopefully, this results in a balanced plate full of goodness. 

The plate in the picture above is an example. For that meal, I had:

-sausage

-garlic hummus

-wheat thins

-Swiss cheese

-cherries

-grapes

-lychee

-olives

-carrots

You don't need very much of any one thing, and it's easy to weight the plates so that they're more full of veggies and fruits than anything else. It's a nice way to have a small sampling of rich ingredients without taking an unhealthy amount. Olives and sausage are lovely, but they're better when balanced with fresh, crisp carrots & cherries (or celery, or romaine, or oranges, or apples, or . . . or, or, or).

One of the posts that inspired this style of eating for me was this one from The Clothes Make the Girl: "Great Ingredients: No Recipe Required".  She has lots of ideas for how to make this kind of meal. I love her lists of ingredients, and her ideas for combining them.

I like having this method in my back pocket as a dinner option, especially for those evenings when it's hot, and we're all feeling lazy and hungry and ready just to eat something good.

What about you? Have you tried this style of eating?

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell