Sara's Spinach Salad Goes Local

    I love potlucks. I love how everyone brings their signature dish and shows it off to its best potential. I love getting new recipe ideas and learning something new about the person who made the dish. Out of nowhere,  you might learn that a colleague has a recipe for lasagna from an Italian mother in law that will make you weak at the knees. 

  At work potlucks, I cross my fingers and hope that Sara will bring strawberry spinach salad, a salad I'd never had or heard of before she brought it in to my life.  I've had it elsewhere, but hers is the finest, whatever personal touch she brings to this recipe makes it my favourite. With a little tweaking I've made a local version to accompany my Dalew Weiner's and Valley Grower roasted potatoes for dinner tonight.

I've included Sara's original recipe, with my notes along side.

Spinach- included in this week's CSA delivery
Strawberries (sliced)- picked at Beaulieu in Chelmsford
toasted pine nuts- skipped
goat cheese (you can substitute feta, brie or another cheese but it's so yummy with goat cheese so just don't substitute)-if I'd had some on hand I'd have used it.

The dressing (the piece de resistance)

1 garlic clove, minced- In the CSA box, garlic scape was included, thank you, how I've missed local garlic.
1/2 tsp. honey dijon mustard- honey from buzzy bee's, dijon from the fridge
2 tbsp. raspberry vinegar- I used Cranberry Juice concentrate from Iroquois Cranberry Growers
1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar- stuff in the fridge

1 tbsp. brown sugar- maple sugar from Seguin Sugarbush

1/4 cup vegetable oil- Pristine Gourmet soya bean oil
(whisk together - I put it into bottle and shake the heck out of it, which also does the trick)- good advice.

Enjoy Locavores!

The hot dogs were for the kids, but I couldn't resist!

Garlic Scapes are new to me, they look like this:

Garlic Scapes

You can learn about them here: Garlic Scapes , if you have a tried and true recipe send it my way I'd love to try it!


Shannon D.