Not Just Peachy Salad

This salad has a lot more than peaches, but peak peach season is the inspiration. Peaches here are at their prime, ripe and juicy. Combine them with spicy arugula, crunchy fennel, and a surprising summer squash and you've got the perfect end of summer, or beginning of fall, salad.

Ingredients:

2 ripe peaches, pitted and sliced
4 cups baby arugula
1 bulb fennel, thinly sliced
1 yellow or green summer squash, sliced vertically
4 tsp. salad dressing
freshly cracked pepper

Directions:

This salad is all about presentation. The peaches are sliced with their skin intact. Using baby arugula gives a spicy note, rather than the bitter note the comes from more mature and larger arugula. I used a mandoline set on a thin setting to thinly slice both the fennel and the summer squash. If you don't have a mandoline, just slice them very thinly. Mix everything together, divide among plates, and top each salad with 1 teaspoon of salad dressing and a grind of fresh pepper. Serve.

Serves 4

Stealthy Cooking Tip: Feel free to vary the proportions in this salad. I added just a little squash to one of the plates, then lots of squash to another plate based on the palates of the people eating them. The sweetness of the peaches balances nicely with the spicy arugula, so I used a light salad dressing of just oil and vinegar, but any light salad dressing would go equally well.