We had friends in town from Denver and wanted to give them a good hearty meal. I made this salad with pesto pasta that I will post next.
I found this recipe from my new favorite blog to get recipes from http://www.shutterbean.com/. She has soooooo many recipes that I want to make and has a great blog.
SO…this salad was incredibly tasty! It is definitely not the healthiest salad, so if you are concerned about calories and carb intake, I don’t recommend this. In fact, you can barely see any green on the picture, its so loaded with other “stuff”. I have been on a spinach / goat cheese kick lately and the sweet candied walnuts and caramelized onions, with the crunchy peppery croutons made this salad divine.
I made the croutons and walnuts in the early afternoon to take some of the prep time pressure off. I had to take them off my counter because I kept nibbling on them 
So lets get to it….
CROUTONS
First you need to preheat the oven to 350. Take a loaf of bread (better if it’s a few days old) and cut into cubes. Place on baking sheet (I always line my baking pans with tin foil) Drizzle olive oil on them and top with black pepper, a dash of salt and any herbs you like. I just used S&P here.
CANDIED WALNUTS
1/3 cup brown sugar
¼ cup water
2 tablespoons butter
Pinch of salt
1 ½ cups walnut halves
Combine the brown sugar, water, butter and salt in large skillet.
Bring to boil, whisking. Let boil for 1 minute. Add the walnuts and stir. Stir for about 3 minutes until syrup forms glaze on nuts.
Transfer the nuts to sheet of tin foil and quickly separate with a fork to avoid clumping together. Let cool and try not to eat all of them before your meal!
CARAMELIZED ONIONS
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 med-large red onion, sliced thinly
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
Heat the olive oil in skillet, add the onions and sauté until golden brown, about 15-20 mins.
Remove from heat and drizzle the balsamic vinegar on them. Season with salt and pepper.
Now, your salad ingredients are ready to be put together. Don’t forget to put the goat cheese in there too! I drizzled the a balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing over the top and fresh ground black pepper for a little extra kick. Now for the best part, indulgence!
This salad can be used as the main course with a nice bread or maybe a cup of soup but I used it as a side to the pesto pasta. This meal was not the healthiest meal or the lowest calories, but it sure was AMAZING. Look for the pesto pasta recipe next
Remember kis, eat your spinach! “I’m strong to the finish when I eats me spinach I Popeye the sailor man! toot toot”