My favorite spring salad

While the weather here has yet to give any indication of spring, the plenitude of strawberries in the market shows that spring must have arrived somewhere in this country.  This salad is my absolute favorite spring (and summer) salad.  Light, cool, refreshing, and a taste combination to die for.  Who wouldn’t love the combination of a slightly sweet dressing, strawberries, mangoes and caramelized nuts?

Ingredients:

• Approximately 1 head of lettuce
• Fresh spinach (the ratio of spinach to lettuce depends entirely on your tastes)
• Strawberries
• Mango (optional)
• 1/2 onion (red or white)
• 1 cup chopped nuts (I’ve done walnuts and almonds.  If I could buy pecans here, I would definitely try those as well.)
• 1/4 cup sugar (for caramelizing the nuts)
• 1/2 cup mayo
• 2 T white vinegar
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup milk
• Poppy seeds

To prepare nuts, add sugar and chopped nuts to a small skillet.  Stir constantly until sugar melts and covers nuts with a golden glaze.  Transfer nuts to a plate and allow to cool.  Once cool, immediately place nuts in a container and hide them in a very difficult to reach place.  Or else, if you’re anything like me, you’ll start munching and before you know it you won’t have any nuts for your salad.

For the dressing, simply mix together the mayo, vinegar, sugar, milk, and poppy seeds.  Chop up the lettuce and spinach.  Very thinly slice the onion.  Slice the strawberries.  Cut up the mango (if you’ve never learned how to properly cut a mango, check out this video, I use the second diced method).  The mango is an optional addition.  Last spring, I was putting this salad together and went to buy strawberries.  All of the fruit sellers laughed at me, because apparently, strawberry season had ended two days before.  Once strawberries are gone around here, they’re really gone.  Consequently, I decided to try a mango as a substitute, and discovered I loved the flavor.

Mix it all together and serve with some fresh Italian herb bread for a light meal!