A Salad for Warmer Days

So, it's 8:30 on a Friday night, and I'm sitting in my bed after having eaten a lovely homemade pizza dinner with my parents. I know what you are all thinking. Does she not have friends? How old is she, because did she ever tell us? Why is she in bed so early? Why isn't she posting about the homemade pizza?

I'm here to answer all of your questions, and more! First, I do have friends. Such good friends, in fact, that I'm leaving in two days to  go stay with some of them in Boston for a week! I'll touch back on that later. The answer to the second question is that I am 19, so it's pretty weird for somebody my age to spend their Friday night this way, which brings us to the third answer. I have a very good explanation for this. You see, I work at a bakery, and bakeries have early hours. Long story short, I have work at 6:30am tomorrow. But I'm staying up to blog for you guys because I love you all so much and I love talking about food even more.

Finally, my answer to your fourth question is that my mom made it, and I would never steal the credit for anybody else's work. Though I do have to say that I make some pretty fantastic pizza, which I will definitely be writing about in the near future.

Anyways, back to the main reason for this post. A salad. Not a boring salad with the wilted iceberg from your bottom drawer, and not a grab-store-bought-dressing-from-the-fridge salad either. None of that shit in my kitchen.

Whenever I go food shopping, I usually try to buy at least two or three different kinds of lettuce. I almost always have spinach and arugula in my fridge, so for this salad I used spinach. I love the way spinach wilts under the sauteed onions I threw on top, because it gives it a different texture than a regular cold salad. Along with the spinach and onions, I threw in some chevre, sliced strawberries, and half of an avocado. I sauteed the onions in olive oil, and because of that the salad didn't need much dressing, but I drizzled on some aged balsamic vinegar, because I'm obsessed with anything and everything vinegar.

This salad is really simple, and easy to make if you only have a short time to eat lunch, or you're just too hungry to wait long for anything. For me, thinking about this salad is what helped get me through work today. With the strawberries and avocados, it really reminds me of warm weather, and I think everybody needs a reminder of what that feels like right now. #elkinthekitchen.

A Salad for Warmer Days

Ingredients
1-2 handfuls of spinach
3 strawberries
1/2 avocado
2 Tbsp chevre
1/2 onion
2 Tbsp olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions
1. Cut the onion into slices. It doesn't matter how thick or thin, as long as they are all around the same size. Pour the oil into a sautee pan, put heat on medium, and throw in the onions. Let them fry for around five minutes, stirring every 30 seconds or so to make sure they are not burning.
2. Once the onions are done cooking, it is time to assemble the rest of the salad. Put the spinach in a nice sized bowl. Slice the strawberries and avocado, and throw them in on top of the spinach, along with the onions. Crumble the chevre on top. Mix around so the warm onions can wilt the spinach and melt the cheese a bit.
3. Once everything is in the bowl, drizzle a bit of balsamic on top, sprinkle on some salt and pepper, and enjoy!

I hope this recipe reminds you of summer they way it does for me. As I mentioned earlier, I am going away next week, and I will try to keep up with posts, but if I stop for a few days, do not fear! I won't abandon the blog, or you guys for that matter, so just know that if there is ever a lull in posts, it's for good reason (like a vacation!!).