Spinach salad with feta, blackberries, honey-glazed walnuts, and balsamic dressing

Yeah, there has to be a better (re: shorter) name for this recipe. I'm not really in the right headspace for contemplative blogging with thoughtful recipe names right now. I'm about to graduate from school and it's finals time and I'm desperately looking for fulfilling employment. . . . You might say I have bigger fish to fry than wordplay. Maybe.


Anyway, my brother is finishing out his first year of grad school now and he's crazy busy too. I wanted to cook something easy and he wanted poutine, which under normal circumstances, I would have attempted to make from scratch. Given my time constraints, and the fact that Trader Joe's has a Poutine kit in their frozen foods section, I figured I'd get that and then spend a little time making salad dressing and prepping vegetables. I wanted something healthy to counteract all the (delicious) badness that is poutine. The poutine ended up being just ok. Maybe I'll try a from-scratch version soon.

So, I mixed up the dressing and roasted some walnuts in the oven.

I might just glaze the walnuts with some brown sugar on the stovetop next time. The honey-roasted walnuts I made were fine, but summer's coming up and I may not want to use the oven and heat the entire apartment.

The salad dressing is really delicious (and I used this version from here). Balsamic is my favorite kind of vinegar. I think it's because it was a staple on the dinner table when I studied abroad in Italy in college. My friend Meghan and I lived with a host family one summer and the dinners the family prepared always started with a first course of arugula (rocket) and a dash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  During our senior year of college, Meghan would also prepare a really tasty balsamic dressing that I think her dad came up with. It involved reducing the balsamic on the stove, if I'm remembering correctly. Anyway, balsamic vinegar has a layer of nostalgia twisting through it because of my fond memories of Italy and college. It's also really tasty--a little sweeter and a lot thicker than other vinegars.

My best advice about salads is to mix all of the ingredients together (greens, dressings, mix-ins) in a large bowl and then serve it up. I know it's prettier to have a cute little jug of dressing that people can pour onto their own salads (and that may be a necessity, if you're serving people with dietary restrictions) but I think it's so much tastier if everything's been mixed up beforehand. The even distribution of ingredients really does seem to make a difference.

Just the fixins

All mixed up!

Since I had a couple chicken breasts that I'd grilled and frozen a month ago, I figured I'd use them up. I only added grilled chicken breast to the salad because my brother has an animal protein obsession. If it were just me, I'd add edamame or maybe some pan-fried tofu instead. Blackberries were on sale, so I picked those up, but I think grapes, dried cranberries, blueberries, or strawberries would be equally delicious. Cantaloupe or watermelon would probably also be tasty too.

Spinach salad with balsamic dressing
(serves 2 as a main dish, three or four if it's a first course)

Vegetables
6-8 oz fresh spinach, rinsed and dried
8 oz sugar snap peas, chopped into bite-sized pieces
Protein
1/2 lb chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
(Protein is optional, especially if this is a side dish--you could also use edamame or pan-fried tofu or crispy bacon bits)
Fixins 
2-3 oz feta cheese, crumbled
4-6 oz blackberries, rinsed and dried
handful glazed walnuts, chopped (recipe below)
balsamic dressing, to taste (I think I used about 2-3 oz?) (recipe below)

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl by hand. Top with additional fixins, if you want. Serve immediately.

Honey-glazed walnuts
(makes about 2 cups, which is way more than you'd need for the salad)
from Epicurious.com

2 cups walnuts (or pecans or cashews)
1/2 cup honey
1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Stir walnuts and honey together. (You can microwave the honey for 30 seconds or so to make it easier to coat the nuts.) Spread the nuts onto a large baking sheet that's been covered with parchment paper. Sprinkle salt on the nuts and then put them in the oven.

Roast about 15 minutes, then take them out and stir the nuts around. Put them back in the oven and cook about 5 minutes more. Take them out of the oven and let them cool. The coating on the nuts will harden as they cool.

Balsamic dressing
(makes about 10-12 oz)
from Chinese Grandma

2 tbsp honey
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp dijon mustard (I used whole grain)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
3/4 cup olive oil (extra-virgin)

In a bowl, stir the first five ingredients together until well-mixed. Whisk in balsamic vinegar. Add olive oil in a slowly, whisking continuously in order to emulsify the dressing. You'll know it's done when the dressing is super thick and the olive oil is completely incorporated into the dressing. Store in a jar with a lid in the refrigerator.