Salads and Vinaigrette

Spring has sprung and the lettuces are growing. I signed up for a month of Arganica and ordered the $25 fresh picks box last week. I got a lot of green stuff: lettuce, spinach, chiles, sprouts, celery, cilantro, two tomatoes and two apples. I wasn't expecting to get non-local produce, the apples and celery were organic but were packaged/labeled. Oh well...I think I'll wait until the summer to try being a better locavore. For what it's worth, I searched for some more local asparagus at the grocery store the other day. I bought the asparagus from Californian among the Mexican bundles. CA is more local than Mexico, right? Hmm....that's a stretch.

Vinaigrette has always been my favorite salad dressing. Growing up my mom used to make her own "oil and vinegar" and keep it in a corked bottle in the fridge. We usually had a few other salad dressings on hand but the oil and vinegar was everyone's favorite. This week I made vinaigrette with apple cider vinegar, olive oil and some grainy dijon mustard. Putting dijon in my salad dressing makes me feel French.

Here's a salad (adapted) from the Paris Cookbook by Patricia Wells, a book I received from my college roommate while she was living in Paris. So simple: Spinach, avocado, bacon and vinaigrette. I made this two nights in a row! And ended up eating (with help from my bf) an 8 oz package of bacon in 4 days. Have I ever mentioned how much I love bacon?