Now that the weather has sweetened and the grass has greened Trooper the Wonder Puppy and I have been spending a lot more time outside. It seems that we are of one mind about this May weather being much more clement than past months. It’s just so nice out! (When it isn’t raining…)
Trooper has developed a really adorable habit on our walks. Dandelions are his enemy. When he comes across them in his path he pounces on them and gets all snarly bounding and leaping from weed to weed, biting off the blooms, leaving the wreckage behind him.
What dandelions ever did to him, I don’t think I’ll ever know, but he sure is adorable in the process. Trooper the Wonder Puppy is a friend to gardeners and a scourge to the dandelion population.
Trooper is also very interested in salads when they smell like bacon.
Spinach and Bacon Salad with Pickled Red Onion and Feta
For the onions:
1 Cup sugar
1 Cup apple cider vinegar
1 tsp sriracha sauce
1 tsp freshly cracked pepper
pinch of salt
1 large red onion
For the salad:
8 slices of bacon
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp Dijon mustard
salt and pepper
12 ounces spinach
6 ounces feta cheese
Directions
- Pickle the onions first. This can be done a day ahead. In a small saucepan, boil together the sugar, apple cider vinegar, sriracha, salt and pepper.
- Cut the onion into very thin rounds (if you have a mandoline, this is the perfect time for it.
- Add the onion to the pickling liquid and continue to simmer for 2 minutes.
- Allow to cool.
- Cook the bacon in a pan, reserving 1 Tbsp of the fat once finished.
- Dice the bacon.
- Whip up a vinaigrette using the reserved bacon fat, vinegar, olive oil and dijon. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Toss the spinach with the vinaigrette, and then garnish it with the cooked bacon, crumbled feta cheese and some slivers of pickled red onion.
This recipe gives you way more of the pickled red onion than you need to use in the salad. It’s been really tasty to sneak into other salads, and sandwiches as well. The difference a quick pickle can make, yum! Just store what’s left of your pickled red onions in a jar in the fridge.
Normally, I’m a stickler for a salad having good toothsome crunch, and spinach isn’t really the green to use for that. Still, this salad brings together smoky, sour, sweet, salty, and briny flavors perfect for an (almost) summer day.
Mr says that the pickled red onions go really well with the vinaigrette.
This time last year: Sour Cream Ice Cream
And the year before: Roasted Butternut Squash
A few days before Easter I got a phone call from Mr’s mum. She was looking for a recipe for a curried chickpea salad; something she could whip up a batch of and keep in the fridge for a few days while bringing portions of it to work for lunch. I told her I was sure I could find something and that I’d make a batch for Easter supper, so we could try it out, and she would have some left to start off taking it for lunch.
I was pretty happy with how it turned out, as was Mr’s mum and the other Easter guests. The chickpeas take up the spicy, tangy vinaigrette really well. Next time, I would suggest a little more curry, because I would like the flavor to be a little more prevalent, but that’s just me.
There was one person who was downright unenthused about our curried chickpea salad, Mr. He’s the apple of my eye, but decidedly not a fan of chickpeas; nor does he enjoy curry. In his eyes this was pretty much salad gone wrong. Luckily, the Easter feast provided a lot of other options for him, so he could abstain from the chickpeas and the curry without missing too much of the meal.
Curried Chickpea Salad
1/2 Cup sultanas
2 – 15 oz tins chickpeas
1 red bell pepper
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp lime juice
1/4 Cup olive oil
2 tsp curry powder (I’ll increase to 1 Tbsp next time, I like a little more heat)
2 tsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp salt
1 punnett alfalfa sprouts
Directions
- Soak the sultanas in some hot water so that they will plump up.
- Drain the tins of chickpeas and rinse them well.
- Dice the bell pepper.
- Put the three aforementioned ingredients together in a large resealable bowl.
- Add the apple cider vinegar, lime juice, olive oil, curry powder, maple syrup, and salt to a bowl and whisk together the vinaigrette.
- Drizzle the vinaigrette over the chickpea, sultana and pepper mixture, and seal the bowl. The longer you let it sit the more married the flavors will be.
- Add the alfalfa sprouts just before serving, so that they don’t get soggy, tossing to coat.
- Serve!
I think it would be awesome to experiment with the add-ins of this salad: cut grapes instead of sultanas, cubes of avocado, diced cucumber, maybe serve it over some greens… the options are limitless!
Just remember to try to keep your salad balanced. The vinaigrette has maple syrup for sweet, curry for spicy, apple cider vinegar for sour, and salt to even it out. Chickpeas make the salad earthy and fulsome, but the sultanas add some sweet chewiness, and the sprouts give it a little crunchy bite. Add whatever you please to the mix, but if you try to keep a balance of flavors and textures in mind your salad will be all the better for it.
Because Mr doesn’t like chickpeas, nor curry, this is what Mr’s Mum has to say about the salad (because she is the one who had the idea): “I like the variety of flavors in the salad, and think that it will be good with lots of different add ins. Works for me!” The avocados were her idea!
Tags: alfalfa sprouts, apple cider vinegar, chickpeas, curry, lime, maple, maple syrup, red pepper, salad, sprouts, sultanas
