GP Salad

For Christmas, I received the Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbook, My Father's Daughter. I would pretty much eat every single recipe in the book. It's full of fresh, healthy and mainly meat free options. Since I don't eat chicken and Mr. Evans needs all the protein he can get (Ironman training, remember?), we get creative with our dinner options. This recipe isn't necessarily creative, but it is a good quick standby.

Gwyneth has a ton of salad and dressing recipes, which is right up my alley because I refuse to buy store bought salad dressing when it's so much easier (and healthier and cheaper) to make it myself. Disclaimer... I do love Hidden Valley Ranch with my pizza (lol), so I do keep that around.

Here's one of MANY dressings she makes. It's by far the most simplistic (and frankly, the most boring of those she presents).

Standby Vinaigrette:
2 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp real Vermont maple syrup
1/4 c. red wine vinegar
2 T vegetable or canola oil
1/2 c. evoo
coarse salt
freshly ground black pepper

My favorite salad ingredients are a protein (shrimp, salmon, or steak), crumbled goat or gorgonzola cheese, walnuts/pecans/almonds, tomatoes, chickpeas, blueberries, any type of berry, sliced pears, etc (although not necessarily together, of course). We prefer arugula, spinach, butter lettuce or a mesclun mix for salad.

Here we used salmon, butter lettuce, tomatoes and goat cheese. Super simple weeknight meal!