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Fresh Mozzarella and Tomato Salad

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Trader Joe's Ciliegine-Fresh Mozzarella Cheese

Trader Joe's Ciliegine-Fresh Mozzarella Cheese

Here is another yummy salad that you might not have enjoyed before: fresh mozzarella & tomato salad.

We love to make this tasty salad combination when those big, ripe, juicy tomatoes start to show up at Trader Joe’s. The fresh creamy mozzarella cheese is a wonderful contrast to the tomatoes and the salad dressing

We first had this salad as a large appetizer –the kind that you share in a group. There were large slices of the cheese (baseball size) and between each slice was a thick slice of ripe juicy tomato. They were arranged in a circle on a plate, sprinkled with fresh basil leaves, salt and pepper and drizzled with olive oil.

The dish was just fantastic! Not only did it look wonderful and inviting, but the flavors were unforgettable as well.

So you can imagine our delight and surprise to see fresh mozzarella at Trader Joe’s during a recent visit. We instantly remembered that wonderful appetizer and decided to change our menu for the evening.

We decided to try and re-create the appetizer as a salad and added the quartered cheese to a chopped up salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and spinach.

We made a fresh salad dressing with some apple cider vinegar and also added some sliced, pitted kalamata olives on top. WOW was it good!

Our Chopped Salad with Fresh Mozzarella

Our Chopped Salad with Fresh Mozzarella

Eeks! sorry the picture is a bit blurry… we hope you can get the idea 🙂

Trader Joe’s Feta Cheese

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Trader Joe's Feta Cheese

Trader Joe's Feta Cheese

Now that the weather is consistently warm here in Tucson, we are enjoying more salads. So when we had a hankering for a chopped Greek Salad we also had an opportunity to check out the selection of Feta cheeses at Trader Joes. We have tried a couple of other kinds of Feta in other stores, but this Trader Joe’s Feta Cheese is just top of the list.

This 8 oz brick of cheese can be cut up into cubes and marinated in olive oil and oregano and served as an appetizer or as Tapas.

But we prefer to break it apart with our hands, and crumble it into chunks both large and small and use on top of salads. Especially those chopped Greek Salads… YUM!!

What we do is to chop or dice up cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions (small chop!)  and then mix these all up with light, lemony vinaigrette. This can be served up in bowls as-is or on top of a bed of lettuce.

Then just before you serve, sprinkle the top with the Trader Joe’s Feta Cheese crumbles, so they stay on top and make a beautiful contrasting picture against all the red tomatoes and green cucumbers.

If you have not tried this salad before we urge you to get chopping! They are truly refreshing and light and yet full of flavor for a hot summer night.

Do you like Feta Cheese? Have you tried Trader Joe’s Feta Cheese? What did you think? Please take a minute to leave a comment after this post. Even if you just want to say hello we  love to hear from all our readers!