#header-inner {background-position: center !important; width: 100% !important;}

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Green Salad with Spiced Walnuts

Pin It
Green Salad with Spiced Walnuts | the Sweets Life
In a word, this salad is crunchy. It's got crunch from the apples, crunch from the walnuts, and crunch from the celery. It's a pretty basic salad, as I've found most recipes in All You magazine to be. When you're making a more complicated main dish, it's nice to have a salad that takes only a few minutes to throw together. The walnuts can be made a few hours in advance and the rest of the salad comes together in ten minutes, tops.

Ryan wasn't crazy about the spiced walnuts, which he deemed too sugary. I found this interesting, since I thought the almonds in this salad were far more sugary and he didn't mention it then. Personally, I liked the flavor combination going on with the nuts and it's always nice to add a new salad to the ever-growing list. The dressing was light and my substitution of raspberry vinegar (I was out of red wine vinegar) turned out to work just fine.
Green Salad with Spiced Walnuts | the Sweets Life

Pre-packaged salads and store bought dressings are easy, but I promise recipes like this are not much more difficult and a hundred times better! Break out of your dinner salad rut with this Green Salad with Spiced Walnuts!

On an unrelated note...one month from today I'll be in New York City! I mentioned that Ryan surprised me with a trip to Connecticut to visit my friend Paige for my birthday, and while he and I are there, we're going to take a train and spend 24 hours in NY to see a show, explore, and enjoy some fun eats. I've been before, he has not, and though 24 hours won't be nearly enough time to do all we want to, but we already have plans to return (right Katie?!). I need your help though! If you had only 24 hours in the Big Apple, how would you spend them? Must-see? Must-eat? Give me your musts! We obviously won't have time for much but I'm hoping you can at least get the ball rolling on my planning ;)


One Year Ago: Basil Ice Cream
Two Years Ago: Greek Salad and Chocolate Cookie Dough Ice Cream Cake


Green Salad with Spiced Walnuts
from All You, January 2011


Ingredients:
for the walnuts-
-2 tsp sugar
-1 tsp olive oil
-1/2 tsp salt
-1/2 tsp cinnamon
-1/2 tsp cumin
-1 cup shelled walnut halves, toasted
for the salad-
-3 tbsp olive oil
-3 tbsp red wine vinegar
-2 tsp orange zest
-2 tbsp orange juice
-salt & pepper
-1 large head or 2 small heads of red-leaf lettuce (I just bought a salad mix that included red-leaf lettuce)
-2 celery ribs, thinly sliced
-1 Granny Smith apple, cored & thinly sliced

Directions:
1. To make the walnuts, whisk the sugar, olive oil, 2 tbsp water, salt, cinnamon, and cumin in a large skillet. Add walnuts and toss to coat. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, for about 2 minutes, until nuts are crisp and slightly glazed.
2. To make the salad, whisk olive oil, vinegar, orange zest, and orange juice in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Add torn lettuce to the bowl, followed by celery and apple. Toss to combine. Top with walnuts and serve.

This content was originally posted on Honest Cooking in my featured column "Cooking the Magazines".