Rock City Retreat

A colorful salad with local lettuce, grass fed chicken, green beans, black-eyed peas and more fresh flavors of the season decorated our plates in the Rock City picnic area at Coopers Rock State Forest near home.  The overlook in this area is very crowded, but our picnic spot was private, cool and perfect:

The gorgeous lettuce from Deberry Farms made the perfect salad base.

I cut it in half, then added layers of:

• Strawberries, cut in quarters and 8ths
• Pulled roasted chicken
• Grape tomato halves
• Fresh green beans, cooked
• Black eyed peas (I buy the unsalted frozen version that requires 1/2 hour cooking)
• Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
• Pecans
• Fresh cut thyme sprigs

The dressing recipe is from Clean Eating Magazine:

Vinaigrette

(Serves 3)

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon shallot, diced
1 1/2 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Fresh ground pepper

After lunch, we sipped our coffee on one the many rocks:

Enjoy your week!