Mexican Chilled Prawn Salad

A very happy weekend... friends, writing, sunshine, wine and food, all in a beautiful location.Hey, no one has to have all of those to be happy.
Mostly a little sunshine, a nice meal and someone to share it with is enough for me.
But, you know what?
Actually I am pretty confident I could be happy eating this salad, by myself, on a rainy day.
It's a happy and mostly healthy salad.

I got together with a bunch of gals at a vacation home in Eastern Washington this last weekend. We're all writers and we're all bloggers, hanging together, a little laughing, crying and critiquing the writing. Add some beautiful scenery, hot sun, cold wine and enough meals to make a grown man blush and you might have a perfect weekend.  This was the lightest meal we ate, we laughed that we needed to do some farmer work, but instead used our heavy lifting for writing.  We like to think it burns the same amount of calories.

Here I am writing away, looks like this was coffee time, must have been before 5 o'clock.  

I made this on a Thursday night, and packed it almost 200 miles to eat for lunch on Saturday.  It's an easy to throw together salad that travels, and keeps, nicely.  I brought the tomato, cilantro, lettuce and avocado to assemble at the last minute. The best part of this salad is that the salad already includes the dressing as part of it.  Add a squeeze of lime if you need more...


Serves 6-8
Ingredients

Dressing/marinade

3 limes, juiced (about 1/4 cup)

3 garlic cloves
1/2 tsp dry mustard, or dijon mustard

1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves

1/2 tsp salt (or to taste... could be more needed!)

3/4 cup vegetable oil

Salad:

2 lbs prawns, cooked and cooled (I used frozen, pre-cooked prawns from Costco)

4 green onions, chopped

2 jalapeno's, seeded and minced

1 cup corn, either fresh or frozen & thawed

Dressing (from above)

1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves

2 tomatoes, diced
1 small can sliced black olives, drained (optional, I forgot to add them!)

6-8 cups fresh salad greens

Limes, for serving on the side

In a blender, add the garlic cloves, cilantro, salt, mustard and lime juice. With the engine running, add a thin stream of oil through the hole in the top of the lid.  Continue adding the oil slowly until the oil is all blended in. Test the seasoning, it should be well seasoned and maybe a bit on the salty side. It needs to be well seasoned as the prawns, corn and tomatoes will need that to make a great salad. Set the dressing aside while you assemble the salad.

In serving bowl, or a bowl with a storage lid (like I did), add the prawns, jalapenos, green onions, olives and corn. Add the dressing over the top and stir.  Let it marinate for at least 30 minutes, or as long as a day (like I did).  When you are ready to serve, add the diced tomatoes, the sliced avocados and stir again.  Add to the top of fresh salad greens and serve with some tortilla chips.

Here's the leftovers from our lunch, I carried them another 200 miles home and had it for Sunday dinner with my husband.