Strawberry and Grapefruit Salad with Vanilla Dressing

These colors are so pretty together and they taste really good too. Strawberries and Grapefruits are both a little tart so this sweet dressing goes well with them. I made this as a side to my Monte Cristos. It was delicious.

1 Grapefruit, cut into slices and seeds and rind cut out
10 ounces (or so, you can eyeball it) strawberries, fresh or thawed

Mix fruit together in large bowl. Then drizzle with Vanilla Dressing (recipe follows).

Vanilla Dressing
adapted from Alton Brown's recipe

1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup mayo (sounds weird, but it's good)
1/2 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp honey
2 tsp powdered sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp kosher salt
pinch of fresh cracked pepper

Combine all ingredients. Let rest for one hour in fridge before serving. Depending on what fruit you are using, you might want to adjust the acidity (lemon juice) and the sweetness (honey and powdered sugar) to suit your tastes (the strawberries and grapefruit are both acidic and a little tart so I added less lemon juice and more sweetness).

Toasted Pistachio and Manchego Cheese Salad with Chile Lime Vinaigrette

Grant and I were in Scottsdale, Arizona where we ate at True Food (if you are ever in the area, you NEED to eat here). We ordered this salad for an appetizer and it was amazing. I wanted to try and recreate it at home. Luckily the best parts of the salad were no brainers. Toasted pistachios and Manchego cheese. The combination of the two is heavenly. You will want to keep the other ingredients of the salad to a minimum so as to bring out the great flavor of the star ingredients. Start with some shelled pistachios. So good, you will want to snack while you go!

To toast them, add two teaspoons butter to a saute pan and 1 cup of shelled pistachios and cook until the pistachios start to turn a darker color and look toasted. Dry them on a paper towel and sprinkle with just a little kosher salt. ( I use kosher because it has a great salt flavor, but rarely can you "oversalt" whereas with cracked rock salt, it because overwhelming fast.)

Next, you get yourself some Manchego cheese. A little pricey but WELL worth it.

Throw in an heirloom tomato and an avocado.

For the actual greens, I used a mix of spinach and romaine, you can use field greens which I would've used if I had some. I also like to throw in some fresh herbs with the greens. It seems to add freshness to the salad and isn't as overpowering as you might think. Fresh herbs are my secret ingredient to making a great salad. Here, I have flat leaf parsley, but I have added cilantro also. It just depends on the other ingredients you're using. Just about a handful of the leaves and mix them in well with the rest of the greens.

Mix them all together and pour Chile Lime Vinaigrette over them. The dressing is easy.
1/2 jalepeno seeded (and minced if you're making the dressing by hand)
juice of two limes
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon fresh cracked pepper
Combine ingredients in a food processor (or magic bullet) or by hand until mixed well.

This salad is very light and delicious in flavor. It's perfect as an appetizer or accompaniment to a heavier meal. I threw in some edible flowers for presentation. It's good enough to eat!