Welcome-to-Spring Spinach Salad

Sometimes a salad is just a salad, but sometimes the ingredients come together and it just works. This is one such salad. The avocado mellows the red onion, and the crunch of the apples nicely balances the different crunch of the pecans. Yum!

If you want to make this salad for less than four people at once, it’s no problem. Cut out as much of the apple and avocado as you want, leaving the rest whole. Leave the pit in the avocado. Rub the surface of both with lemon juice and wrap tightly in tin foil or plastic wrap. They should keep for a day or two. Even if they brown a little bit, you should be able to cut off a small layer to find perfectly good fruit.

Welcome-to-Spring Spinach Salad
Serves 4

6 cups spinach
1 apple, diced
1 avocado, diced
½ cup red onion, finely sliced
1 cup pecans

Vinaigrette
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
2 tsp. red wine vinegar
2 Tbsp. olive oil
½ tsp. sugar
salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

1. Whisk vinaigrette together in a small bowl.
2. Chop veggies and divide them (and pecans) among four bowls.
3. Pour dressing over salads and toss.

(Alternately, you can toss the veggies and dressing in one large bowl and serve family style).

Banana Orange Smoothie

You may think I’m on a bit of a smoothie kick lately, but the truth is that we’ve been having smoothies almost every morning for years. It only just occurred to me to start posting about them. With their combination of whole fruits and protein, smoothies provide vitamins, fibre, and energy to last until lunchtime. They are also delicious.

This morning’s version is pretty simple – bananas, orange juice, soymilk. The maple syrup and cardamom lend nice sweet and spicy flavors, but can be omitted if you don’t have them around. The race cars? They are a metaphor for how you will feel after drinking up – small, plastic and from a Kinder Surprise egg? Full of energy and ready to go? You decide.

Banana Orange Smoothie
1 large or 2 small servings

2 bananas, torn into large chunks
1 cup orange juice
½ cup soymilk
1 tsp. maple syrup (optional)
⅛ tsp. ground cardamom (optional)

1. Combine ingredients in a blender (I prefer a hand blender like this one for quicker, quieter, more complete blending and easier clean-up – and no, I haven’t been paid to say that). Blend until smooth.
2. Serve with race cars.