recipe: salad dressing: balsamic vinaigrette and bacon for red leaf lettuce salad (or any other leafy salad); (click on image to see larger view)

Isn’t bacon the most wonderful invention? And maple cured bacon is even more wonderful. Yes, indeed, we love bacon!

When we decided to have French onion soup last night, I suggested having a salad as well. T made a face and said,

We don’t need a salad. Onions are a vegetable…

But when I murmured something about red leaf lettuce and putting bacon bits on it, he suddenly started humming happily and got out the frying pan.

This past Christmas, we were given a bottle of really good olive oil. It is fragrant and a little spicy with a hint of mint – even though it is pure olive oil. When we got the olive oil out, we noticed an unopened bottle of balsamic raspberry vinegar – also a Christmas gift. What a perfect opportunity to use them! Here’s what T did:

Salad Dressing
(no measurements here… measure to taste)

• smoked bacon slices
• cider vinegar
• grainy mustard
• balsamic raspberry vinegar
• olive oil
• salt & pepper

Preparation

1. Fry bacon til crisp. Remove from pan and chop. Set aside.
2. Drain off most of the bacon fat and deglaze pan with cider vinegar.
3. Reduce heat to low and stir in all other ingredients except bacon.

Serve by tossing lettuce leaves in warm dressing. Scatter bacon bits overtop.

to recipes from OUR kitchen

We purposely omitted garlic from the dressing because the croutons on the soup were rubbed with raw garlic. We really wanted a contrast between the soup and the salad. The salad dressing was perfect. Simple and fruity with just the right amount of sharpness added by the mustard. (Do make your own mustard. It’s brilliant.) We were amazed at how much raspberry taste there was. This is definitely a keeper!

Yes, indeed French onion soup and salad are fabulous combination! (Remind me to rave about that soup!)