spinach salad

This salad is the April recipe review from the Aggieville cookbook.  The salad is spinach, bacon and water chestnuts with a homemade dressing.  The spinach is fresh from the greenhouse, picked today with only a quick rinse.  The bacon is cooked crisp and crumbled and I used canned water chestnuts.  Water Chestnuts come in whole or slices and I used the sliced and then cut the slices crosswise.  I think that you could have left them as whole round slices or chopped them.

The dressing goes together very quickly and easily.  The recipe called for minced onion so I chopped mine quite fine in the food processor first and then added the rest of the ingredients and made the dressing in the food processor.  The dressing is red in color and reminds me of a french dressing but a little sweeter.  I used a sweet onion and I soaked it in some ice water for 30 minutes before I used it to try and reduce the hotness of the onion.  I used canola oil and white vinegar but I think good variations could be obtained by using olive oil and/or a different vinegar, such as a cider, wine or seasoned rice vinegar.  The dressing ingredients make enough for many salads.

Spinach salad and dressing

Salad

2 lb fresh spinach, washed
1/2 package cooked, crumbled bacon
1 can water chestnuts

Dressing

1 cup oil
1/3 cup catsup
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup vinegar
2 Tbsp minced onion

 For salad, tear the spinach into bite sized pieces and combine with crisply cooked, crumbled bacon and chopped or sliced water chestnuts.

For dressing: blend all ingredients in a blender or food processor.  Pour over salad when ready to serve.   

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