Sweet and Tangy Salad

I hope everyone is enjoying a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving.  I haven't blogged or focused much on Thanksgiving because I don't consider myself much of a foodie or great cook.  But I did want to share this fresh salad I put together for today's meal.

I'm glad I decided to add a green salad to our holiday menu.  It was a nice break from the starches that made up most of our meal.

For my sweet and tangy salad, I used:

• spring salad greens (I must admit these were packaged)
• crushed walnuts (broken down into smaller chunks)
• dried cranberries
• blue cheese crumbles

I used a healthy tablespoon of each of the toppings (walnuts, dried cranberries and blue cheese) for each serving size.  I made the mistake of tossing my salad before taking any photos, so most of the fun toppings fell to the bottom.  Blue cheese may seem like a weird choice for this salad, but I think it added just the right amount of tang.  This salad would also be great with some leftover turkey tossed in.

To top it off, I threw together what might be called "kitchen sink" dressing, because I just grabbed some stuff that sounded like it would work well together:

Sweet & Tangy Dressing (amounts for a single serving for a side salad)

• tablespoon of olive oil
• 1/2 tablespoon of red wine vinegar (maybe a little bit more)
• tablespoon of raspberry or strawberry preserves (I used strawberry because it's what I had)

You could also add a dash of salt and pepper, but I wanted this dressing to be more fruity than sharp.  Stir together ingredients really, really well.  Make sure you give it a good stir before adding it to your salad.

If I hadn't used this dressing, I probably would have just put on a light drizzle of my favorite poppy seed dressing from my nearby big box retailer.  This stuff is really, really good!

I realize this salad and dressing isn't really breaking new culinary ground, but I was really pleased not only with how this salad and dressing came out, but also how well it complimented our Thanksgiving feast :)

I hope you enjoyed your holiday as much as I enjoyed mine!