This is not a dainty spinach salad.  Spinach salad always makes me think of Easter.  Small, tender spinach leaves support nicely cut boiled eggs, supremed oranges, and crisp bacon.  This beast of a salad is not the dainty Easter kind.  In fact, the people you are serving this salad to might tentatively serve themselves just a little bit at first.  Only to go back for 2-3 more helpings!  This salad involves big, craggy spinach leaves and a slightly sweet hot dressing that is poured on at the last minute and tossed immediately to slightly wilt the big spinach leaves.  This goes well with everything from chicken to pork or just by itself!  Serving a crowd?  Then buy 2-3 bunches of big spinach and multiply the dressing into greater amount!

Warm Winter Spinach Salad, Serves 2-3 people

Ingredients:

1 large bunch of big, craggy spinach leaves (washed very well and spun dry)

3 slices of thick applewood smoked bacon, diced small

3 boiled eggs, diced small

8 oz. button mushrooms, sliced thin

1 apple, any kind, diced medium

2 cloves fresh garlic, minced finely

Dressing:

1/4 c. whole grain mustard

2 T. maple syrup

1 T. Sherry Vinegar

1T. Rice Vinegar

3T. Olive or Canola Oil

salt and freshly cracked pepper to taste

Method of Prep:

Wash all the spinach well and spin dry.  Break into bite-size pieces by hand and put into a big bowl.  Boil the eggs, cool, dice and set aside.  Dice the bacon and saute until crisp.  Leave the bacon and it’s fat in the saute pan as you will be using it when you make the dressing.  Slice the mushrooms and set aside.  Mix all the ingredients for the dressing together in a bowl and whisk together.  Taste the dressing and salt and pepper to your taste.

When you are ready to serve the salad, heat the pan with the bacon in it.  When the pan is hot again, throw the apples and minced garlic into the pan and saute for about 1 minute.  Add the dressing and heat until the dressing begins to boil.  Turn off the heat.  Add the mushrooms and egg to the spinach in the bowl and toss.  Then add the hot dressing to the top of the spinach and toss very thoroughly.  The hot dressing with coat the spinach, but because you are using large spinach leaves, it will not wilt the salad very much.  Serve immediately.  You will probably not have any leftovers.

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Tags: cooking gluten-free, gluten free cookbook, Gluten free San Antonio, gluten-free living, good gluten free foods

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 10th, 2011 at 8:03 am and is filed under Can go dairy-free, Recipes, Veggies, Veggies and such. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.