Spinach salad

I happen to like salads so when asked to bring one for a party I try to think of something everyone would enjoy. Kent wanted to do spinach.

We like spinach salads that are served with a vinegarette. Preferably a balsamic that is tangy. But to simplify things I decided not to do everything from scratch. I guess we could have just bought a balsamic dressing. I find the bottled dressings tend to be too sweet. Kent was in charge of the bacon and washing the spinach. We plucked the stems off together and saved the stems in a zip sandwich bag to be used later for an omelette.

Bacon

The bacon was cooked in the toaster oven. Toaster oven bacon is a nice way to do a small amount of bacon with an easy clean up. Foil the toaster oven tray and lay out the bacon, I was able to place 4 slices on the tray.(Yes, I placed the bacon, but since I didn't want to keep an eye on them Kent was to make sure they did not burn and was cooked to crispy.) The bacon goes into the toaster oven, no pre heating and set it to 400 degrees. In 15-20mins maybe longer the bacon should be crispy. You might want to flip it at some point maybe even drain some of the fat dripping. Try not to open the toaster to much.

Onion

I bought a regular red onion so I sliced it and let it soak in some cold salted water to try and draw out the sharpness of the onion. Careful to not let it soak too long. It will become salty and lose its crispness.

Boiled egg

I don't have one set way of doing my eggs. Sometimes I start with the water at a slight boil, other times I'll place them in when the water is lukewarm. It all depends if I remembered to take the egg out to get to room temperature and the size of the eggs. Let's be honest here, even though the egg carton says large on it, the eggs in side will sometimes look small. I'm sure they need to be a certain weight to be considered large. It was probably a carton sabotaged by one of those people that stand there swapping eggs around. For a solid yolk, 10-15 mins at a full boil. If I feel the egg needs to be cooked longer I let it sit in the water after turning off the heat.

Ranch dijon dressing

The dressing this time was a mix of ranch dressing and a bit of dijon mustard. I added just a smidge of dijon so not to overwhelm the ranch. This got mixed in a zip sandwich bag for easy clean up and also easy of drizzling it over the spinach. Just careful cut the corner of the the bag. Being careful since the dressing can ooze all over the place if the hole is too big

Add a little more dijon and it makes a really good spread for a ham and cheese sandwich.

We had walnuts, but they never made it on to the salad.

Make sure the spinach has time to dry after washing. It is possible to layer everything and chill a couple hours before, but the spinach might wilt a bit so do it bit before you want to eat the salad. Spinach- toppings- spinach- toppings. Or you could always server the dressing on the side for those people that like to drown their veggies.