Thursday, June 17, 2010

Delicious Summer Salad

Tonight for dinner we ended up having this salad and it has become one of my very favorites. I don't know if there is a recipe for this out there (there probably is somewhere), but we just put together what we had. So filling, yet very light and refreshing and pretty healthy. We were planning on having a bbq so I had marinated some chicken tenderloins for a Teriyaki-ish flavor. And I was just planning on the salad as a side dish so when we ended up combining them I wanted to make sure the dressing actually complimented the salad and the raspberry pecan dressing in the fridge was past the Best Buy date (by quite a bit) so I just threw this together. It turned out so wonderfully (and it's so simple) I wanted to record it somewhere.
Dressing:
1/4 c. White Wine Vinegar
1/3 c. sugar
3 large spoonfuls of Blackberry Jam
Olive Oil ( less than 1/4 c.)
These measurements are not "scientific" at all. I made the dressing in a clean sour cream container (the 2 c. size) and covered the bottom about 1/3 in. deep? with the vinegar. Then I added some jam and sugar and finally covered the top with a little Olive Oil. I tasted it and it was too strong of a vinegar taste for me so I added another spoonful of jam and a little more sugar so I think the amounts above are about what I ended up with, but you can tweak it for your taste. Then just shake it up.

* We ended up making another salad this same size so next time I would just double it to begin with for 2 adults (but we like larger portions) and a 2 year old (who loved this salad!). There was enough dressing for both salads with just a little bit left over.

Rinse a few cups of Spring Mix lettuce (or spinach or a red leaf lettuce) and shake dry.
Add about 1 c. of rinsed and drained cottage cheese
1/4 c. sliced Smokehouse Almonds (we love Blue Diamond because they have such great flavor, but I'm sure a generic would also work)
Big handful of rinsed Blackberries
3-4 Chicken tenderloin sliced.
Handful of crumbled bacon (I hate having to cook it anytime I want to use it so I buy the bag of Hormel Bacon bits at Sam's Club).
Toss it all together, we hope you enjoy it as much as we did!