Grilled Vegetable Salad

Step up your salad game by grilling your vegetables and serving them still warm.
This isn’t a recipe, so much as it is throwing together a few things from the refrigerator, but it was so incredibly good, I couldn’t resist sharing.  Last weekend was our 5th anniversary, and to mark the occasion we received a grill from my mother-in-law.  I decided to break it in by attempting to recreate my favorite salad: the house salad from Uptown Chicago Grill in Harrisburg, PA.  The salad is actually really simple – no special ingredients – but it’s the first salad I ever had topped with still-hot grilled vegetables.  Not raw, not marinated, not seared and then chilled… fresh off the grill vegetables.  Delicious.

Ingredients:

• 1 zucchini, sliced lengthwise
• 1 yellow squash, squashed lengthwise
• 1 portobello mushroom cap
• handful of grape tomatoes
• mix of lettuce leaves (I used red romaine and arugula)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Directions:

1. Mix together olive oil, sea salt, garlic, thyme, black pepper, and balsamic vinegar and pour over sliced vegetables.  Marinate 15 minutes – 1 hour.
2. Preheat grill to medium high, and ensure both sides of vegetables are thoroughly coated with marinade.
3. Grill vegetables 5 minutes on each side, until brown.  Remove from grill and slice portobello mushroom.
4. Serve vegetables on a bed of lettuce with grape tomatoes.  Drizzle marinade over top of the salad.