Harvest Spinach Salad with Honey-Mustard Dressing

I originally planned to post this salad for Sukkot, the week-long Jewish harvest festival. Somehow, the calendar got away from me!

When I decided to make salad my theme for this week, however, I remembered how much I liked the slightly sweet/slightly tangy honey-mustard dressing and resurrected the recipe for my table and my blog.

The bacon wouldn’t be very appropriate for Sukkot, of course, but it does help transform the salad into a whole meal. The final product has fruit, protein, calcium, vegetables, and nuts. And it tastes terrific, too.

The dressing recipe makes enough for another day. Just be sure to refrigerate the leftover dressing–and to bring it to room temperature and shake it well before you use it again.

Ingredients:

for the dressing:

3 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 tablespoon orange juice
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
ground pepper to taste (I like to grind the pepper mill about 6 times)
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

for the salad:

1/2 pound uncooked spinach leaves
1/2 cup walnut or pecan halves (or more if you like)
1 apple (your choice, cored but not peeled)
1/2 small red onion, chopped into rings or pieces
1/2 cup crumbled feta or blue cheese (or more if you like)
3 strips cooked bacon, crumbled (optional)
1/4 cup dried cranberries (or more if you like)

Directions:

First, make the dressing. In a small saucepan over low heat, stir together the vinegar, the juice, and the honey until the honey dissolves. Remove the pan from the heat, and let the mixture cool for a few minutes; then use a whisk to stir in the mayonnaise, mustard, salt, and pepper. It will take a while for the ingredients to smooth themselves out.

Finally, slowly whisk in the oil. Careful pour the dressing into a jar with a tight-fitting lid that will hold at least 1-1/2 cups of liquid.

Wash the spinach thoroughly.

Place the nuts in a small frying pan, and fry them over low heat for a few minutes, stirring constantly, to release their oils. Take the pan off the heat.

Just before you are ready to eat, slice the apple. In a salad bowl, combine the spinach, onion slices, toasted nuts, apple slices, cheese, bacon (if using), and cranberries.

Shake the dressing, and pour a third to a half of it onto the salad. Toss the salad well but carefully.

Serves 8.

By the way, since I know many of you are probably in the midst of holiday shopping right now (I’m starting soon, I promise!), I thought I’d remind you that copies of my Pudding Hollow Cookbook are available.

Of course, I’m sure most of my faithful readers’ friends and relatives already have copies of this lovely book (my text, Judith Russell’s illustrations), but if someone on your list doesn’t own a copy please consider buying it.

Domestic postage and gift wrap are free (although I have to confess that my gift-wrapping skills aren’t as good as my cooking). And I love to sign copies of the book.

Here's the link....