watermelon feta salad

I subscribe to at least 10 magazines.  So many that I don't have time to read them all.  I know I should let some of the subscriptions go, but I can't.  I love them.  The pretty colors, the pictures, the craft ideas, the home decorating advice.  And the recipes.  Oh, the recipes!

Lately it seems I have had even less time to pore through them, (though I somehow managed to add 3 more subscriptions to my pile), often managing barely a quick page through before they hit the magazine shelf, only to be covered up in a few weeks' time by another issue I don't have time to read.  Over the past few months, however, in those quick glance-overs I have noticed several recipes for a watermelon-feta salad.  They have caught my eye because a.) the flavor combination sounds so interesting and b.) the colors in the pictures were so vibrant and mouth-watering.  So somewhere in my brain, I tucked away the idea.

Fast-forward to 5pm this evening, when I had to [once again] come up with a delicious dinner on the fly.  My family is actually pretty easy to satisfy--give them some sort of meat, peas or corn, and some sort of starch and they are perfectly content, thrilled actually.  And with all the coupon shopping that I do, I have enough meat, frozen veggies, and rice/potatoes to keep them happy for a long time to come.  As a vegetarian my own tastes, on the other hand, are a little more complicated.  So tonight I put the Broccoli & Cheese-stuffed chicken in the oven for my family and searched the fridge for something to make for myself.

This weekend on our drive back from Orlando, we randomly stopped at a roadside fruit stand and loaded up on some really cheap watermelon.  And last week, feta cheese was on sale at Publix AND I had a buy 1 get 1 free coupon.  As I peered into the fridge, all those cursory glances through my favorite zines came rushing back and it hit me:  Watermelon Feta Salad.

There was only one problem.

I had absolutely no idea in which of my gazillion magazines I had seen the recipes, and searching could literally take hours.  I had 20 minutes.

I decided to wing it.

I filled a medium size bowl with chopped up watermelon, added some very thinly sliced onion (about an eighth of a medium Vidalia onion) and a few ounces of feta cheese, then mixed it all together.  I then spooned some onto a plate, sprinkled it with pepper, and drizzled it with balsamic vinegar glaze.

And I have to say, it was incredible!  I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I couldn't get enough and I ended up eating the whole bowl all by myself.  (Luckily it is also a fairly low-calorie meal, not to mention super easy, quick, and cheap!) It's not for everyone--my husband and kids refused to even taste it--but if you like flavorful foods, give it a try.  You won't regret it.