Salad Bar in a Bowl

This evening I was in the mood for a nice big salad for dinner.  I chopped up all the salad fixings while I sent hubby on a rotisserie chicken run to keep it simple for our dinner on this rainy Friday night.  Rain has become our "new normal" here in Georgia!  For our salads, I chopped up a couple small heads of artisan romaine lettuce; shredded some red cabbage; thinly sliced a carrot; halved some small cherry tomatoes; diced some red bell pepper; and diced some Kerrygold cheddar cheese (Red Leicester).  I sliced half of an avocado to put on my salad and hubby added banana peppers to his salad.  To make our "croutons", I roasted some whole pecans at 350 degrees F for about 8 minutes and then tossed them while hot in a small bowl with 1 tablespoon of melted Kerrygold butter that I seasoned with a couple dashes of chipotle chile powder and sea salt.  I popped the lightly buttered seasoned pecans back into the oven and roasted them for about 3 more minutes and let them cool.  When hubby got home with the chicken, I cut the breast meat into large chunks and then put our salads together.  Hubby had his with ranch dressing and I had mine with a simple vinaigrette that I seasoned with sea salt and chipotle chile powder. The buttered spiced pecans added a nice buttery, toasty crunch with a little kick from the chipotle. There were so many different items in our salads that it was like having a salad bar in a bowl.  I snapped a few photos for you to see below.  It was a quick and simple dinner for a Friday night -- and it kept our kitchen cool on this rainy, muggy evening.  Enjoy!