Sunday, October 3, 2010

A Wedding Shower-Inspired Spinach Salad

Yesterday, I got to hang out with friends from the gym to celebrate Britt & Will's engagement and very close wedding. Surprisingly, alcohol was not needed to get me rowdy and goofy. Needless to say, I had a great time.Will's mother was an awesome hostess and made all the food from chicken casserole to turkey chili to some pretty delightful brownies. One thing she made that I fell in love with at first bite was a spinach salad. I could taste spicy mustard and there was bacon and sliced egg in the salad - so you know it was tasty.

After professing my love for her salad, she told me how she made the dressing and I knew I would be making this at home! (I waited a whole 12 hours before giving it a go!) Like most things I cook, I've added some things to make this my own. =)


Spinach Salad

Bag of Spinach (It doesn't matter if it's baby spinach or regular - I used regular today)
6-8 oz Thick Sliced Bacon
8 oz Mushrooms (I used crimini)
3 Large Eggs - hard boiled & sliced

Dressing

≈ 3 Tbsp Spicy Mustard
≈ 2 Tbsp Red Wine Vinegar
1 Onion (I used a sweet onion)
1 - 2 tsp Honey
Salt & Pepper

Cook your bacon & reserve the drippings. I bake mine on wire wracks at 420° for about 15-20 minutes. This prevents the annoying curling and it removes the most grease. Once your bacon is cooked, set it aside. Sauté the mushrooms with a little bit of the bacon fat until they are deliciously tender. (About 5 minutes) Set this aside. Once the bacon's not scalding hot, cut it into about 1" strips. (It's harder to shove a whole piece of bacon in your mouth, unless your my boyfriend...)

Chop the onion into chunks - not too large, you're going to blend this and you don't want the blender to take forever. In your blender, add the onion and blend it until it's a thick, tear-jerking paste. Add 2 - 3 pieces of bacon, 2 tbs of the bacon fat, the vinegar, mustard, & honey. Blend until it's all combined. At this point you can add salt & pepper if you're using it. I recently purchased some Himalayan Sea Salt and had to try it in this. And of course, fresh-cracked pepper - it's really the only way to have pepper!!!
Once the dressing was done, I combined the spinach, bacon, mushrooms, eggs and dressing in a large bowl and mixed with tongs until everything looked pretty evenly distributed. Then I took a quick picture and inhaled my salad.

This is easily addicting!

~Yvie



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