a "berry" good salad

not my photo, stole it

Strawberry season is upon us, or at least it is in central New Jersey.  The farmer down the street has his stand set-up and has been selling his pesticide free strawberries for a couple of weeks now.  There is nothing like an organic, fresh strawberry.  Yum-my.

My husband and I went out to dinner a few weeks ago and split the most delightful salad before our delicious meals.  It was made up of baby spinach, strawberries, goat cheese, curried cashews, and topped with a blueberry shallot vinaigrette.  I tried to recreate it last week and succeeded, although it wasn't an exact replica.  I substituted habanero bbq almonds for the curried cashews (a trip to Whole Foods just wasn't in the cards that week) and I bought honey mustard dressing because 1. I was too lazy to make it from scratch and 2. because they don't sell blueberry shallot vinaigrette at the local Shoprite.  I think next time I will eliminate the almonds and just stick with the fruity and creamy toppings.  The moral of this story is:  fruit tastes good in salads.