Dinner salad with chicken, figs and cold cuts (Recipe)

After a long day, the last thing I wanted to think about was what I would make for dinner. Being the primary cook of the household, even though I love everything about food, eating and cooking, sometimes I just don't feel like preparing a meal (!!). But, alas, hunger always wins. So to save time and cooking energy, I decided to throw a big salad together with whatever I had in the fridge. 

Here's what I did: I started out making a simple dressing. In a large bowl I poured 1/8 cup of fresh lemon juice (I always keep some in little plastic containers in the freezer), 1/8 cup olive oil, about 1 tbsp. honey, a pinch of salt and a few grinds of fresh black pepper and whisked it up.

To this big bowl I added my salad ingredients: a head of romaine lettuce (washed, dried and chopped), chopped tomatoes and carrots. After spooning portions of the mix onto dinner plates, I then topped the salads with whatever meat and fruit I could find in my fridge. I ended up chopping up leftover chicken, fresh figs, a pear, some cold cuts (salami, hot coppa and prosciutto) and sprinkled this over the salad, along with some cubes of cheese curd I got at a local farmer's market.

This became a very surprisingly satisfying meal. Even my boyfriend (who sometimes thinks salad is a waste of stomach space) thought it was delicious. Go figure.