Waldorf Salad

Now that grilling season has officially started we need to make some nice, easy  salads that don’t require cooking. How nice is it to throw together a quick salad with no oven and prepare the rest of the  meal on the grill while sitting on the patio and enjoying the evening?  Especially after a long. cold winter. So ready for nice weather and pool days. This weekend Cliff and I went to the nursery and bought some vegetable plants for our raised garden bed. We decided to scale back a little this year. Last year we had more tomatoes and peppers then we could handle and our enthusiasm kind of dwindled because we were so overwhelmed. We just couldn’t keep up. This year we did 2 different tomatoes, 3 cucumbers, 2 peppers, brussel sprouts, strawberries, and some herbs. Hopefully it is manageable for us! I cant wait to enjoy fresh pickle cucumbers right out of the garden this summer! We will be doing a more in depth update on our raised garden bed in a couple of weeks.

One easy salad that I make is waldorf salad. You know those recipes that are so common to you, but you don’t know if anyone else eat them? This is one for us. I have never had waldorf salad from anyone other than my Mom. I don’t know how popular it is. I did a little research and it seems it was invented by a chef at the Waldorf Hotel in New York about 100 years ago, hence the name waldorf. It was evolved some since then though. Seems like my Mom’s version is pretty common except for maybe the raisins. But still, I am not sure if this is a “regular” for other people so I thought it was worth posting. Regardless, it is one of our favorites and we enjoy it many evenings each summer. I would be interested if you make a similar salad or what variations you do. We have always used red delicious apples but I think I might change it up next time and try either granny smith or honey crisps since those are my favorite apples.