Late Winter Medi Salad with Hummus Pitas

This recipe is called Winter because many of the ingredients are jarred or canned, making it an accessible salad for those Tomatoes-Aren't-Worth-Eating, cold months of the year. Medi is short for Mediterranean, which is the vague term that comes to my mind with at least two of the ingredients. Anyway, it's delicious, and that should be the main thing.

Salad Ingredients:
-Romaine Lettuce, washed and chopped into bite sized pieces (pre-washed and cut works)
-5 or so Kalamata olives, pitted and split in half (come in a jar)
-2 hearts of palm, sliced or whole, as desired (come in a can)
-2 dolmas (stuffed grape leaves, come in a a jar or can)
-1 small handful chickpeas (from a can)
-1 very small handful chopped red onion
-1 small handful chopped broccoli
-1 very small handful chopped fresh fennel
-1 very small handful raw pumpkin seeds

-drizzles of olive oil
-splashes of balsamic vinager
-1 pinch dried oregano
-1 pinch or three grinds black pepper

Pita Ingredients:
-1 whole or 1/2 whole wheat pita
-hummus or other bean spread or dip

To assemble:
-Place all salad ingredients except dolmas (and palms if leaving whole) in a deep bowl and toss well to coat with dressing.
-Lay dolmas (/palms) on top of salad.
-Spread inside of pita with hummus or other spread and leave to eat on the side.

Serves one.

After buying what seemed like an extravagant array of preserved and fresh foods items, I ate this salad at least once a day for a whole week and still had many of the things left, so I decided it was quite practical after all. It was also filling, delicious, pretty, and seemed awfully nutritious.

Clearly any number of substitutions, omissions, and augmentations can be made with this salad. I forgot to list that avocado was present on a few of the days. Some days other items were absent, and that was okay too. I did find that eating the palmitos (hearts of palm) as whole sticks was somehow more satisfying than integrating them as slices in the salad, and that a good toss with the oil and vinegar transforms the salad from a bowl of raw veggies into a bowl of juicy bliss. If you have a deep container with a lid, use it, that way you can shake it.

Anyway yeah, I'm sure this would be good with artichoke hearts (another canned/jarred item), fresh or roasted red peppers, tapenade, tabouli, any number of fresh vegetables, different nuts or seeds, or as a sandwich where everything goes in the pita instead of having it on the side.

Get crazy. Eat a dope meal salad. Love late Winter.