Fancy Pear Salad

In a weird roundabout way, the time change was the inspiration for this meal. I got out of work early and I was supposed to head home and start dinner. But it was a particularly hot day, and it was SO light outside from the time change that I could hardly begin thinking about turning on the hot oven and cooking a heavy meal. Instead, I scratched my original dinner idea and walked into the grocery store with a new game plan. I placed an 'emergency' call to my sister, who is the family keeper of the Nordstrom cookbook. I grabbed a few ingredients that I needed to complete the walnuts, vinaigrette, and ingredients that went into this salad. Then I was on my way to the most perfect and delicious salad for dinner. This is a great on all year long; even though pears are in season here from late summer to early fall, you can pretty much find pears at the store at any time of year.


Recipe (serves 5 as entree, or about 8 as a side salad)
10 oz Mixed Baby Greens lettuce/salad mix
1 Pear, sliced or diced
6 oz. Gorgonzola Cheese, crumbled
1/2 batch Candied Walnuts
3/4 cup Dried Cranberries
1 batch of Champagne Vinaigrette (drizzle sparingly and serve the rest on the side to add as desired)
*Optional- Chicken, if this is intended as the main dish

Toss all ingredients and plate it up this scrumptious chopped side salad:

Or have fun plating it up fancy:

Or serve it with a breast of grilled, sliced chicken for protein if this salad is to be your main entree:

Champagne Vinaigrette

This champagne vinaigrette recipe is from the Nordstrom Cafe cookbook, and it goes well with candied walnuts in a fancy pear salad. It is a super yummy salad and it is a great one to serve when you have guests because it is impressively 'fancy', yet so quick and easy to throw together since these ingredients are always available, and most likely already in your kitchen. This vinaigrette could not be a more delicious and easy homemade touch to your salad. You'll have to try it for yourself :)


Recipe (the recipe in the cookbook makes ALOT of dressing, so I halved the recipe for you here and it is still good for 6-8 individual side salads!)


1/2 small Shallot
1 small clove of Garlic, or 1/2 clove garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons of smooth Dijon Mustard
1 Tablespoon of Sugar
1 big pinch of Salt
A couple cranks of freshly ground Pepper (recipe calls for white pepper, I used black and it was great)
3/4 cup Champagne Vinegar (White Wine Vinegar is a fine substitute if you don't have Champagne Vinegar on hand)
3/4 cup Canola Oil (you can also use Grapeseed oil as it also has a very light flavor. However, I wouldn't suggest using Olive Oil because it has a strong flavor of its own that competes with the flavors of the other ingredients in this dressing; but I guess if it's all you have you can try it?)


**Nutrition Noteworthy: Canola oil has the least saturated fat of any cooking oil, and its high heat tolerance, neutral taste and light texture make it ideal for many culinary applications. The FDA authorized a qualified health claim for canola oil on its potential to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease when used in place of saturated fat.


Add all the ingredients (shallot, garlic, dijon, sugar, salt, pepper, and vinegar) EXCEPT the oil, into your food processor and blend until smooth. Then, while the processor is ON, slowly drizzle in the oil to form an emulsion:

It is a beautiful, smooth, ivory dressing!

The lightness of a vinaigrette works great with this fancy baby green salad, yet the pungent flavors in this dressing stand up well to the hearty ingredients of pears, walnuts, and gorgonzola. A little bit goes a long way, so start by drizzling sparingly and add more as desired.

Easy Candied Walnuts

My family LOVES to eat at the Nordstrom Cafe. My favorite things there are their salads and their white chocolate bread pudding. Unfortunately they do not serve the bread pudding anymore, BUT we do have the Nordstrom Cafe cookbook. Today I am going to share with you the recipe for the candied walnuts from the Nordstrom cookbook. These candied walnuts are one of the things I love about their salads.


This time, I made these delicious candied nuts to be part of a yummy pear salad for dinner, but they also make a great topping for ice cream too! Each batch of this recipe makes about 2 salads worth. I like that because I just have to make it once, baggy half of it, and it stretches for 2 whole salads :)
(Peter thinks these make great snacks just straight out of the baggy, so I have to hide them well in my cupboards otherwise I'm afraid I'll plan another salad but pull out an empty bag! haha)


Recipe:
1 large Egg White
2 1/2 cups Walnuts (about 10 oz)
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar


Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Then, in a bowl, whisk the egg white to a semi-firm peak (so that there is NO liquid left in the bowl)

 Fold in the walnuts and the brown sugar until well coated:

Then spread the nuts on a cookie sheet that is lined with a silpat, parchment paper, or is prepared with a nonstick spray. Try to somewhat separate the walnuts so that they don't bake into a giant clump.

Bake in the preheated oven for 12 to 14 minutes. Immediately loosen them from the baking sheet and let them cool on a plate. (They only take about 30 seconds to cool and crunch up on the plate before they are ready to be used in the salad)

We crunched on these candied nuts in this super yummy pear salad (vinaigrette recipe here)