Cornbread Salad with Buttermilk Dressing

I made cornbread the other night. Fresh cornbread, right out of the oven with the butter still slightly bubbly and drizzled with honey is simply a transcendent experience for the taste buds. However, once cornbread is 3 days old, it looses it's excitement. So, the other night I went looking around for what to do with leftover cornbread that wasn't a dessert. I found my answer at smittenkitchen.com (my favorite foodblog that I'm a little scared to share, since it is so incredible and well done). She made croutons out of cornbread and paired it with a buttermilk-lime dressing over a salad. I did my own salad base, but followed her notes on how to crisp the cornbread and dressing. And it turned out as one of the best salads I've ever had.

Ingredients
(for 2)

For the salad:
2 large slices of cornbread, cut into 1 inch cubes.
1 small head green leaf lettuce, washed and ripped into bite size pieces
1 handful dandelion greens, thinly sliced
1 cup grape tomatoes, sliced in half
1/4 red onion, finely chopped
2 small zucchini or summer squash
1 roasted red bell pepper, thinly sliced

For the dressing:
1/2 cup buttermilk
Juice of two limes
1 tablespoon honey
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 tbsp finely minced fresh basil
2 tbsp finely minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 tbsp cup finely minced green onions
1/2 teaspoon salt


Directions

Make the croutons:

Preheat the oven to 450F. Spread out the cut pieces of cornbread on a baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes.

Make the dressing:
Mix together all of these ingredients. Shake well. Refrigerate until use.

Make the salad:

Over medium high heat, saute the yellow squash, stirring frequently, until the sides are golden, about 10 minutes. While sauteing, assemble the rest of the salad. Add squash on top of the other vegetables. Add croutons. Dress as you like. I used a lot more dressing than normal here. But at the same time, I was so flavor satisfied at the end, that I didn't need to each anything more.