Spinach-Fruit Salad

With our dinner last night I wanted to serve a salad, but the only greens I have on hand are from a bag of spinach that I bought a few days ago. Usually I think of spinach salad as having strawberries in it, but I don't have any fresh strawberries on hand. I do, however, have lots of apples, and a few walnuts. Oh, and look!, there are some dried cranberries, too! So I looked up a recipe for spinach-apple-walnut salad. I found several to choose from. I guess the main thing I needed was a dressing recipe. So here's an approximation of what I came up with (measurements are approximate):

Divide evenly between two serving plates:

2 handfuls of spinach

1 apple, cored and cubed

a few walnut halves, broken (I actually heated a frying pan and put these in it, along with a sprinkle of sugar, and stirred them around til the sugar melted and coated them a bit)

a few Craisins or dried cranberries

In a blender combine:

2 tablespoons frozen cranberry juice concentrate

2 tablespoons water

4 tablespoons safflower oil

2 tablespoons vinegar (I used cider)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon Mrs. Dash

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Blend all together. Taste to see if you need to add more salt or sugar or vinegar or something to give it a bit of pleasing tang. Then pour a little over the two salads just before serving.

We also had some hamburger-stroganoff for dinner, which I made as roughly follows:

1 pound hamburger, cooked with

half a large onion, chopped

When the hamburger is longer pink and the onion is soft and cooked through, drain the juices and add:

a can of cream of mushroom soup

a can of mushrooms

a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce

Stir till heated through, then remove from the heat and stir in a big spoonful of sour cream or plain yogurt. Serve over cooked rice or noodles.

Cooked carrots and broccoli were the vegetable(s) we ate with the meal, and I had a slice of bread and butter with honey on top for dessert.

Anyway, it was a good meal.