The salad dressed to impress

Maybe its just me, but its seems like salads with fruit and poppy dressing are all the rage these days. At any given Relief Society luncheon or bunkco club you will see a salad like this with a different variation. To know the poppy seed dressing is to know an infinite combinations of great salads. In the salad pictured above I did;

Romaine lettuce

Baby spinach

sliced strawberries

diced mangoes

baby sweet peppers (don't know these peppers? look for them they are so good!)

slivered almonds

shredded mozzarella

poppy seed dressing

The possibilities are indeed endless. Candied walnuts or almonds, mandarin oranges, feta cheese or goat cheese, any berries, advacados, pine nuts, dried cranberries, apples, pears . . . it goes on and on and on.

Here is the dressing, this comes from my grandma

Poppy seed dressing

2-3 T diced red onion ( I just cut off a hunk of onion, don't bother measuring I just pulled that number out of thin air)

1/3 c red wine vinegar

1/3 c sugar

1/4 t dry mustard

1 t salt

2/3 c oil (what ever kind you like)

1 T poppy seeds

Do this all in your blender. Combine the onion, sugar, vinegar, dry mustard and salt and puree the crap out of it (till you don't see the onion anymore). While the blender is going, slowly add the oil until well combined. Add poppy seeds and give the blender a couple pulses.

So there it is, it will last in the fridge for almost forever. A helpful hint is to toss just the lettuce with the dressing, then add all the toppings, that way all the nuts and berries don't sink to the bottom, and the cheese doesn't get soggified by the dressing.

So you can impress your book group now, and be in with what's "cook" in the salad world.