Thanksgiving Salad
This year at our family dinner I decided to take some of our “European Mix” baby lettuce for a fresh Thanksgiving salad. I think it was a success, even my nephews gave their approval. We always have the traditional Thanksgiving feast, complete with several casseroles, potatoes, dressing and the rest of the trimmings. Somehow we never considered starting with a fresh green salad. This was a simple throw together salad with no real recipe, I even kind of cheated on the dressing using “Marzetti” Simply Dressed all natural vinaigrette, Pomegranate. The salad was only fresh baby lettuce, pecans, dried cranberries, a few slivers of purple onions, feta cheese, fresh ground pepper and a splash of pomegranate vinaigrette. It was fast, easy and delicious.
I have to tell this one on myself, I was going to use fresh pomegranate in place of the cranberries, but that didn’t turn out exactly as planned. I remembered eating fresh pomegranates when I was a kid in North Carolina, our neighbors had a few shrubs and the neighborhood kids help themselves to them. When I bought them for my salad and started “de-seeding” them they looked like what we ate as kids but they had little seeds inside the seed, I didn’t remember that! They tasted good but had a grape like seed inside and I didn’t think that was what I wanted on my salad. That’s why I opted for the dried cranberries, I did saved the seeds and have since used them to make a small amount of fresh juice which I turned into my own vinaigrette. It taste great, but was a lot of work and I think the Marzetti’ was as good and much easier.
Pomegranate Balsamic Vinaigrette Salad Dressing
Juice from one pomegranate (de-seeded and put in blender with a small amount of water, 2 tablespoons of sugar then simmered on the stove for a few minutes, and strained to remove the seeds)
1/4 cup oil (olive, Udo’s, canola, whatever you like)
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
A pinch of pepper
A pinch of garlic powder
Mix it up in a blender –
This is a great dressing that you can make in small batches like I did or double it up. Pomegranates are cheap this time of year around here, and they’re loaded with antioxidants and other things I don’t pretend to understand beyond the fact that they’re super good for you. Enjoy!
Tags: Baby Lettuce, dried crandberries, Feta Cheese, pecans, Pomegranate
