New Salad Creation: Fruity Summer Spinach Salad

Tonight's supper lead to the creation of a new salad. It was a really light, yummy summery salad to go with grilled salmon. We don't often eat fish, when we do it is usually a treat. Tonight Matt decided that grilled fish of some sort sounded good. I looked up several recipes for a salad to go along with it for a light side dish and salad was what I thought of, but couldn't find what I wanted....so I improvised.
There are several salads that have strawberries and spinach and it sounded good so we started with that, then I cut up a couple of peaches threw in some blueberries, added a cucumber and made a dressing with red wine vinegar, poppy seeds, and honey. On top to add texture and crunch I added some toasted pecans. It was sweet, tangy, fruity, and well just plain delicious! It was a great side dish for the fish also.

Fruity Summer Spinach Salad

Fresh Baby Spinach Leaves
1 chopped cucumber
6 chopped strawberries
1-2 peaches
handful or two of blueberries
Broken  Pecan pieces roasted in butter

Dressing:
a little sugar or honey(sweeten to taste)
1/4 cup of red wine vinegar
1/4 cup of white grape juice
tablespoon of poppy seeds
1/3 cup of salad oil of choice

Whisk together sugar(honey), red wine vinegar, and grape juice. Slowly add the oil and whisk all the ingredients together, add poppy seeds and pour over salad just before serving.

I think this would also be good with avocado, mango, celery, pears, cranberry, feta, or blue cheese depending on the fruit combinations. Just by adding a couple of different things this salad could be adjusted for lots of meals.

Fire grilled corn, avocado, mango, tomato, fire grilled jalapeno, would make a great southwestern salad(needs a different dressing, will have to work on something)

Pear, strawberry, blue cheese/Gorgonzola, walnuts

Avocado, strawberry, cucumber

This is a great summer salad for whatever is in the refrigerator...I love that kind of cooking!

Experiment and let me know what you come up with...