Saturday, March 21, 2015

Spinach Salad with Hot Lemon Bacon Dressing

Spinach Salad with Hot Lemon Bacon Dressing

This is a my take on Spinach salad.  It's not the healthiest salad choice you could make, but it is very tasty.  Makes two servings, but can easily be made to serve more.

Salad:
2 eggs
3 slices bacon
1 cup sliced yellow onion
3 cups fresh spinach, cleaned and dried
2 tbsp dried cranberries

Dressing:
1 tbsp bacon fat
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice, fresh is nice, but bottled works fine
3 tsp white sugar (you can increase or decrease this as you like)

Method:
1:   Place eggs in small saucepan and cover with water. Bring water to a boil, cover and remove from heat.  Let sit for 15 minutes.  Then drain, and run cold water over eggs in pan for a few minutes.  Set aside to cool.  Peel eggs and cut into slices or chop when cool.  I prefer them chopped up, but slices look a little nicer.
2:   Fry bacon in skillet, until crispy.  Remove to paper towels to drain and cool enough to handle.  Crumble when cool. Do not drain fat that is left in pan.
3:   Put 1 tbsp of bacon fat into a small saucepan and set aside for the dressing.
4:   There should be just a little bacon fat left in your skillet.  If there's a lot, remove most of it, so the skillet is just barely coated.  Add onions to skillet and cook over low heat, until soft, stirring occasionally.  I do not season the onions, but you could if you want.
6:  Divide spinach between two salad bowls. Top with warm onions, cranberries and crumbled bacon.
7:  For dressing:  add lemon juice and sugar to reserved bacon fat.  Heat over low heat just until sugar is dissolved.  (If you heat it too long, your dressing will solidify like fudge as it cools.)  As soon as dressing is finished, pour over salads and toss to coat.  (This may seem like too small of an  amount of dressing, but a little goes a long way.). Top salads with egg and serve immediately.