Mixed Baby Greens w/ Homemade Dressing

So the oddest but most wonderful thing happened in one of our raised garden beds.  Lettuce grew on its own.  Volunteer, I think it's called.  Yesterday I harvested the baby lettuce gave it a nice shower to clean off the dirt, and then into the salad spinner to dry it off.

There was romaine, curly green leaf, red leaf, and arugula.  What a wonderful delicious surprise!

This lettuce is delicate and very tender, no heavy dressing will work...no ranch, no blue cheese, no thousand island.  The dressing recipe I made to go with the salad is light and a bit tart, and just delicious.

Dressing:

2 Tbl. White Balsamic Vinegar
1/2 tsp. Dijon mustard
3 Tbl. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Tbl. finely chopped shallot*
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper

Put all ingredients in a small jar and shake, shake, shake.  Pour over baby greens and enjoy.

To the salad, I added dried cranberries and sunflower kernals.  Another option would be to add some crumbled bacon.

*We grew shallots in our garden last year.  It was quite a harvest, enjoyed them all winter and still this spring.

Enjoy Friends!

Salad of Baby Greens with Citrus Dressing

This recipe for citrus dressing has been in my recipe book for too long.  Time to make this tasty dressing to have with dinner tonight.

Gather the ingredients for the dressing:  lemon, orange, olive oil, fresh thyme, Dijon mustard, honey, salt.

Here are the exact amounts:

2 Tbl. freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 Tbl. freshly squeezed orange juice
1 Tbl. Dijon mustard
1 Tbl. honey
1/4 tsp. fresh thyme leaves, chopped
1/4 tsp. fine sea salt
1/4 Cup extra-virgin olive oil

Put all of the ingredients in a bowl and whisk until well combined.  (I used my small blender)

For the salad I used organic spinach and baby greens, and a packet of salad pizzaz--orange, cranberry, and almonds.

Here's the salad after drizzling the dressing over-- don't drown the greens, just "dress" them.

Enjoy, friends!!