Zucchini String Salad

In honor of the freaky-death-parching-heat of agony and despair in Arizona, I have decided to devote an entire week to salads...though in all reality is should be about 6 months of utterly unwavering discipleship to anything cold. Why on earth do I live in one of the hottest places on earth? Oh yeah, it's for the winters of love and happiness. Summer saps my memory of winter as well as my desire to do much cooking. Ouch. Is that legal for me to say? As a chef am I allowed to admit I may not really have any desire whatsoever to turn on my stove? Can we pull off a week of it? Maybe. I might break down and cook some pasta in the Solar Oven, but...I'm going to have some time away from the actual stove top. What do you all say to that? Should we do it? I say yes. Starting with this crazy cool salad that I made today with little Face. It was Marry Poppins salad...practically perfect in every way. Yes. Life is always good when I can get my kiddos to suck down zucchini. Even funnier when they suck it down under the false pretense that those long green things are "frog noodles". Little boys are too gullible. Now that I think of it, I could have come up with gross names for all the ingredients...but...I digress.

You will need:

9 ounces of fresh fettuccine, cooked, well seasoned with salt and pepper

2/3 cup Pickled red onions
kernels from one cob of corn (I used some that was cooked last night and cold in the fridge.)

2 zucchini, skins removed with a peeler and sliced thin like noodles (reserve the rest for a later use)

1/2 cup bacon, cooked and crumbled (I cheated and bought it already cooked)*Optional...totally okay to use the soy bacon bits here.

dressing:

2 cloves pressed minced garlic

1/3 cup basil or sun dried tomato infused oil (Use a heart healthy oil if you can.)

2T red wine vinegar

2 tsp all purpose Italian seasoning

salt and pepper to taste

In a large bowl, combine the dressing. Add the salad ingredients and coat well. Enjoy cold.

Look at Face's fork. He begged me to take a picture for the blog. Grin. Tee hee...do I tell him it's loaded with veggies? Nah. Frog noodles worked really well. I may call them that forever.

For legal purposes I must specify that no frogs where injured in the making of this salad. Oye!

There you go legal department.