Fruited Spinach & Arugula Salad, Strawberries With Oranges

Just so you know that we really do eat some fresh, uncooked things (usually a salad that starts the meal), here's today's first-course luncheon salad.

FRUITED SPINACH AND ARUGULA SALAD

I mixed some argula in with some spinach, added small slices of one of those lovely Ontario-grown little red McIntosh apple, a small handful of raisins, three dried apricots (chopped), some slices of green bell pepper, a few slivers of sweet onion,a few sliced water chestnuts (for the texture and the flavour), and a couple of handfulls of yellow cherry tomatoes (so sweet!), halved. I think that was all ;) Everything was organic except the apricots and the water chestnuts.

For the dressing (remember, I'm stubborn and try not to use oil), I mixed balsamic with seasoned rice vinegar, added maybe half a teaspoon of mirin, about 1 tsp of the juice from a jar of ginger, and a tsp of a nice unsugared organic apricot jam. I whisked it all together, poured it on, tossed the salad, and there we were - surprised and delighted as well as hungry.

We usually have fruit after lunch (lunch is our main meal of the day, so we make a bigger deal of it than otherwise), sometimes just from our never-empty fruit basket, sometimes sliced into a fruit salad of some kind (although more rarely). Today my husband made -

STRAWBERRIES WITH ORANGES



This was so good. He sliced fresh organic strawberries into a bowl, added the zest of 1 organic valencia orange, the orange itself (peeled, seeded and chopped), a little sweetener, and a Tbsp Grand Marnier. It was a lovely fresh ending to a nice light meal.

I should add that I also like strawberries with chopped mango, strawberries with chopped mint, strawberries with more strawberries, etc. etc. etc.