Nuts About Berries Salad

Out here in Utah (as well as Arizona and Nevada) there is a great restaurant called Café Zupas. If you have heard of Panera it is similar to that only better.  Zupas sells soups, salads, paninis, and a variety of desserts. Each meal comes with a chunk of French bread and a chocolate dipped strawberry. I always get the try 2 combo where you can choose 2 of the three (soup, salad, & panini) and get the half size of each. My favorite salad is the Nuts About Berries. It has romaine lettuce, berries, cinnamon almonds and a poppy seed dressing. I usually pair it with the Wisconsin Cauliflower soup.

Here is my version of the Nuts about berries salad. Look for my recipe for the cauliflower soup next week.

·         1 bag of your favorite salad (romaine or spinach are my favorite)

·         1 cup of your favorite fruits- cut into bite-size pieces if necessary (grapes, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries…)

·         ½ cup diced cinnamon sugar almonds (recipe will follow in next post)

·         Poppyseed Dressing

o   1/3 cup Apple Cider Vinegar

o   ¼ cup olive oil

o   2 Tbs. sugar

o   1 Tbs brown mustard

o   1 tsp poppy seeds

§  Blend all ingredients together in a blender for 30 seconds

Mix together all the ingredients in a large bowl and enjoy.

For this version I used grapes and dried cranberries as my fruit.

Alternative: This dressing goes really well on a salad of spinach, mandarin orange slices, avocado, bacon and sliced red onion too.