Saturday Salad with Black Walnuts, Slow Roasted Peaches, and Blue Cheese

Yesterday morning I woke up super early and headed down to the market to pick up some fresh milk from Milk Thistle to make a hazelnut ice cream I have been dreaming about for a long time. More on that later. I also wanted to buy ingredients to make a nice salad for my family before they headed back to Mexico in the afternoon.
To prepare the salad, I bought some blue sheep's milk cheese from 3 Corner Field Farm, a head of frisee and Boston lettuce, and some yellow peaches. When I got home I halved and pitted the peaches, and then slow-roasted them at 300° F for about 30-40 minutes. When they came out of the oven, I sliced them into thin pieces and poured their run-off juices into a small mixing bowl. I did this because I wanted to concentrate their sweetness, so that they would really counteract the cheese and nuts. I normally have a no-cubed-cheese policy, but since the blue cheese that I bought was not quite crumbly, I had to break my own rule and chop it up into small squares. By this point my grandmother had helped me wash the lettuce and frisee and tear the leaves up into more manageable sized pieces. She also made a balsamic dressing, adding the reserved peach juice for extra flavor. I had bought black walnuts from Integration Acres a few weeks back, and had some in my freezer. I toasted a couple of tablespoons of the nuts, chopped them coarsely, and added them to the salad. I was surprised at how their flavor mellowed out with the toasting. I usually eat them raw with goat milk yogurt, but will forever now toast them first. If you are reading this blog and are inspired to make a salad like the one I am describing, you can also use the regular walnuts you would usually buy in a supermarket. I just wanted to play around with the black walnuts and see how well they went with the flavors I was trying.
The salad was delish, and everyone really liked it. Some liked the cheese in the salad more than others, and I would have to say that I would have preferred a more crumbly, soft blue variety for the salad (the cheese alone is amazing). Everyone loved the slow-roasted peaches, however, which really did juxtapose with the other flavors in the salad. In Mexico people tend not to eat sweet and savory in the same dish, so my family is always happy to try a new flavor combination.
That is all. I just wanted to share and hope that you stop by the markets and make up your own salad using ingredients that you love and/or find interesting!