Eden of My Blog: Wanderings and Wonderings not only kicked off our new food challenge this spring, but she graciously bowed to our gentle pressure to make her selection the salad she had posted on the food forum. We had all drooled over it at the time.
One of the things I love about salads are how forgiving they are. You can mess with them – a lot. And get away with it. It’s not like baking where the formula is the secret to your success.
Eden’s recipe is delightfully non-specific. Her recommended ingredients were:
Blood oranges – Mixed greens of your choice – Candied pecans – Dried cranberries – Berries of your choice – Feta cheese – dressing of your choice.
Here’s my take on the ingredients:

The blood oranges I had were so dark purple, they were almost black. Beautiful, but a bit past their prime.

They didn’t quite have the orangy zing they needed to carry the salad as the star ingredient. But I had some absolutely lucious strawberries. So, I made them the focal point and used only a few pieces of the oranges. Then I used the juice in my dressing.
My dressing was blood orange juice, lemon juice, raspberry balsamic, & olive oil with only fresh cracked pepper for seasoning. I didn’t add a grain of salt to either salad or dressing.
Here’s a picture of the finished salad.