SOS! (Save Our Salad) - Baby Spinach Salad

The only thing that saved our arteries from narrowing to the diameter of a Dixie coffee stirrer on our Holiday table this year was a fresh Baby Spinach Salad. I still feel weird about using greens that come in sealed bags at the grocery store because for one thing, they come in sealed bags, and another thing, I can’t seem to forget about the promise of those darling little e. coli. *shudders* I need to figure out when and where the farmers’ markets are in OC.

I had to fight the family on adding crumbled bacon and dressing the salad with rendered bacon fat. LOL! I think they only ate the salad for the monster toasted walnuts and sauteed baby portabella mushrooms. The plan was to also include cranberries and roasted pears until my sister’s “You’re going to add fruit to the salad?!” Um, right. No fruit. What on earth was I thinking?! *rolleyes*

Though the popular spinach salads are either wilted (with the bacon fat as requested, but denied, above), or dressed with some sort of red wine or balsamic vinaigrette. Instead, we tossed our baby spinach, red onions, toasted walnuts, tiny tomatoes, and sauteed portabellas with an Asian sesame ginger vinaigrette.

The salad paired perfectly with kimchee. LOL!

Sesame Ginger Vinaigrette
Shake or whisk vigorously 2 Tbsp. olive oil, 1 Tbsp. sesame oil, 1 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar, 1 Tbsp. sugar, 1 tsp. soy sauce, ½ tsp. fresh grated ginger, and ½ tsp. minced garlic.

Obviously, everything should be adjusted to taste.

tags :: food : and drink : american : holidays : cooking : los angeles