This salad happened by mistake one day while I was baking – I had an orange that had been zested, so I needed to use it. I was also hungry, ha ha… So, I was thinking how to incorporate the orange into my lunch. This was perfect. Fresh, delicate, with a bit of crunch – the vinaigrette was OUTSTANDING!

I was baking Cranberry Orange Muffins (America’s Test Kitchen recipe) which are out of this world good. I just paid $1.79/# for an orange that wasn’t orange, ha ha. I wasn’t going to waste it. I ate part of it, which was OK, nothing like when you get really good orange (which would be even tastier in this recipe).

I just used a few handfuls of organic lettuce, chopped orange pieces, chopped walnuts (any nut will do), and some shredded Monterey Jack. My vinaigrette: In a little dish I swirled about the amount of olive oil I would use, then added a splash of white wine vinegar and the juice from a slice of the orange. I also added a tiny squeeze of honey and a few shakes of pepper, whisked it up and drizzled over the salad.

Perfection! You may not need the honey if you have a sweet orange, but this was more tart. I will definitely make this again.

Then I had a Cranberry Orange Muffin (pretty healthy!) – which I substituted pecans – the recipe uses pepitas. I thought it was an odd addition to the recipe the first time I made this, but it actually was perfection. When I was at the store I didn’t even think to get more, so I had to improvise. I was going to use walnuts, but since my husband doesn’t like them (??) I used pecans. Next time I will buy the pepitas and avoid the conflict, ha ha. Here’s the link to the muffins they’re OOTW (out of this world)!

(Since this is the day before Thanksgiving I didn’t feel a Thanksgiving Day recipe would be apropos, but possibly something a tad lighter might help!)

👩‍💻 Until next time…