Whenever I visit Portland in the winter I buy blood oranges. Why? I couldn’t tell you. Other than the fact that they are relatively cheap at Trader Joe’s and an easy fruit to consume, Portland + Winter = Blood Oranges for me.
The strangest thing happened to me last night. I was perusing salad recipes looking for a good salad to make with one of my best friends when I see her in a few days and suddenly I found myself hankering for a huge salad. I can promise you I’ve never uttered those words in my life. If you read any of my posts about salad, you have probably read about how I love a good starter salad but typically don’t eat salad for a meal. Why? Because they don’t fill me up. When I do happen to eat salad for a meal it’s likely loaded down with some sort of protein (chicken, steak or bacon or a combination), cheese (blue cheese, fresh mozzarella or parmesan) and a delicious creamy dressing (blue cheese or ranch).
But last night as I was looking for recipes that contained mixed greens + red cabbage (of which such recipes are very sparse I would like to add), I found myself gravitating toward rainbow salads filled with a variety of colorful veggies.
So when I purchased my standard blood oranges from Trader Joe’s today, it only seemed natural that I should use the blood oranges in some sort of huge fresh salad (fresh being the operative word because I have no idea how long some of the fruits/veggies have been in the fridge–but that’s no bother unless I suddenly end up with food poisoning tonight).
I thought blood orange juice would likely make an excellent fresh and light dressing for a totally fresh large salad chock full of fresh-ish fruits and vegetables. So I found a pretty good looking recipe at Wonky Wonderful that I modified slightly (below). My only regret is that this is such a small portion I really think it’s enough for about two large salads. If I’m being quite honest, I ate most of it for my large salad at dinner but did find salad ingredients swimming in dressing once I dug down to the bottom. If you’re feeding a crowd, you can easily multiply the ingredients appropriately.
ingredients.
- 2 blood oranges, juice of
- 1 blood orange, zest of
- 1 T. raw honey (add more if you’d like more sweetness to your dressing)
- 1 T. red wine or apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp. Dijon mustard
- ¼ c. avocado oil or mixture of oils (avocado, olive, canola, vegetable oil)
- pinch of salt
- fresh cracked pepper, to taste
directions.
- Mix all ingredients together in a jar, cover and shake to incorporate. Serve immediately.
- Store any leftovers in the fridge; shake before serving leftovers. (If your oil coagulates when refrigerated simply allow the dressing to warm up a bit before shaking and serving.)
Recipe rating:
Food Snob 