Yummy salad from back of dressing bottle summarized.

[Skidmore]

Well, I just made this salad from off the back of the Wishbone Raspberry Viniagarette bottle (light). This is a great salad and I modified it a bit so I wanted to pass it on. It's basically a spinach salad some NASCAR driver likes.

I took baby spinach leaves and added baby romaine and raddichio to it (recipe calls for only spinach). You slice up a grilled chicken breast and toast some walnuts. Drain a can of mandarin oranges and thin slice a red onion. Toss all of these with the greens and add goat cheese crumbles. Dress with the raspberry viniagarette. Next time I make this, I'm going to toss in a few croutons too. It is a real nice blend of crunch, sweet-sour, and the goat cheese gives a surprise buttery melt-in-your-mouth smoothness.

[mike_c]

1. sounds really good....

You know, salads are funny things. I usually prefer the simplist salads-- my everyday salad is just romaine pieces, parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, olive oil, raspberry or rice vinegar, and croutons, and it's so good that I'm almost always disappointed by restaurant salads in comparison. I add ham or chicken slices to make it a meal, or make a caesar dressing if company's coming.

But every now and then a salad with more ingredients is really nice-- the thing is that it has to have the quality of the simple salad, not taste overdone, and that's really hard to achieve. Your recipe sounds like exactly the right blend of ingredients. I can't wait to try it.

[eleny]

2. "mandarin oranges and thin slice a red onion"

that sounds like a great combination.

i think i have a bottle of this dressing in the fridge, too!

[jeanarrett]

3. I have made this before, but used blue cheese

instead of goat cheese. Dried cherries or cranberries work good too in place of the oranges.

[Skidmore]

4. Now for a pasta dish loosely based on this recipe.

Prepare farfelle pasta.

Sautee chopped garlic, half an onion sliced longways, fresh oregano, basil, spinach leaves and sliced mushrooms in olive oil. Add salt to taste. Then add balsamic vinager (I used Pompiian dark aged in an oak cask balsamic vinager) and let cook for a few minutes to reduce. Toss with pasta and coarse grind pepper over dish. Sprinkle with goat cheese crumbles.

I made this as a meatless meal but sometime will add grilled chicken. Sometime I might add the raspberry viniagarette instead of the balsamic vinager. I was out of walnuts so didn't add those as well. Bet it would be good with pine nuts in it too.