Blackberry-Walnut Salad with Herbs

Saaaaaalad! Our late summer-planted greens are doing nicely, and we finally got a few blackberries. Normally we are awash in them; this year, hardly any. What a terrible year for so many things. Still, this was a lovely little salad. Blackberries are not really my favourite berry but they are usually so reliable and productive. They really go well with basil, too. It has a clove-like quality about it, and I've often thought that cloves were made to go with blackberries somehow. Anyway, now I hope to make this a couple of times more as long as the basil and blackberries hold out.

It is a well-known fact that I love fruit, nuts, and cheese in salads. No cheese here, but I've seen a number of versions of this salad that call for feta. It would certainly go very well. I served this as a side dish with some salmon so I didn't add cheese. Gotta exercise some restraint, some time.

4 servings
30 minutes prep time

Make the Dressing:
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon honey
salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste
the juice of 1/2 large lemon
3 tablespoons walnut or hazelnut oil

Put the mustard and honey in a small mixing bowl or jam jar and whisk in the salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Whisk in the nut oil.

Make the Salad:
2 cups mixed lettuce
2 cups baby spinach
2 tablespoons finely shredded basil leaves
2 tablespoons finely shredded mint leaves
1 tablespoon finely chopped chives
1 cup blackberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or hazelnuts

Wash, dry well, and tear up the lettuce and spinach into bite sized pieces. Wash, dry, and chop the herbs. Wash the blackberries and drain them well. Chop the nuts.

Toss the blackberries and nuts into the lettuce, spinach and herbs. Drizzle with the dressing and toss the salad again. Serve at once.




Last year at this time I made Peach Custard Pie with Coconut Crumble Topping.

Posted in: Ontario Food