Thursday, February 17, 2011

The Jandorf

This salad looks a lot like a Waldorf salad however it's kinda far from it. I am not a fan of celery or mayonnaise in my salads; so as a rule, I'm not overly excited about Waldorf salads. For the purpose of this blog post I'll call this salad the Jandorf because this is truly my favorite salad.
What makes this recipe so great is the vinaigrette. The apple cider vinegar is from the Okanagan Vinegar Brewery in Summerland, BC. Vinegar was never something that got me really excited. That changed when I went to Edible BC on Granville Island where they were having a apple cider vinegar tasting. My favorite from the tasting is the iced cider apple vinegar. It's handcrafted, all natural, unfiltered and local. It's beautiful in flavor and not too sharp. What more could a girl want?!
The honey I use is the Mountain Honey from Honeyview Farm from Rosedale, BC. This honey I picked up while on a day trip to Agassiz. My cousin Joey, Christel and I toured a couple farms and came home with all sorts of goodies. My favorites from that trip were fresh local hazelnuts and the Mountain honey. When I bought the honey, I was told that the hives were placed in the wildflower fields of our BC mountains and that the honey collected from the hives were made from an assortment of BC wildflowers. Having hiked through some of BCs most beautiful valleys while they are in bloom, I was excited at the thought of happy little honey bees buzzing about in such a beautifully pristine setting to make this honey. Kind of like the Club Med of honey making if you ask me. Now yes, I am aware that I am eating all of their hard work and if they had a chance they'd probably be really upset with me for doing so. But I am ever so thankful for the honey and I don't use it too much (I've bought only one other pot of honey since that trip which was about two years ago). I try to appease my guilt by envisioning these honey bees in a beautiful environment, not over consuming their product and living as bee friendly* as possible.
Both the iced apple cider vinegar and the mountain honey can be found at Edible BC on Granville Island. I've also found that Capers carries the honey (the one on Robson did anyways).



The Jandorf

3 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp minced shallot
1 Tbsp honey
1/2 cup roughly chopped dried prunes (or dried tart cherries)
about 6 cups of baby spinach
1 medium granny smith apple, cored and cubed
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
1/2 cup crumbled pepper goat cheese

For dressing: Whisk first 4 ingredients in a small bowl to blend.
For salad: Layer remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Add dressing. Enjoy!

*I like bees. They're super important to every aspect of the food industry and I don't think many people realize this. I know I wasn't aware until I was reading an article about bees while commuting to work and I found myself in tears when I read how we are affecting their survival. It's not something to be proud of.

1 comment:

Sparkles! said...

That sounds really interesting! I will definitely tried it :)