Pomegranate Walnut Salad with Maple Cranberry Vinaigrette

Pomegranates are so beautiful. I’ve been entranced with them since I studied Greek mythology way back in junior high school.

Then when we lived in California, our neighbors had a pomegranate tree … one long branch of the tree stretched into our yard and that one branch always gave us plenty of pomegranates. Not that it really mattered, because the neighbors let us go into their yard and pick pomegranates whenever we wanted. My kids used to sell pomegranates like some kids sell lemonade. The neighbors loved it.

When you open up a pomegranate, it is full of all these gorgeous little jewels; it looks like a treasure chest to me. And the taste of the little jewels when you bite into one … oh my.

If you want to make this salad, you will first need to make the Cranberry Raspberry Vinegar, and that takes about a week … just giving you fair warning. You could do some clever substitutions, perhaps, but the jewel-toned vinegar with the little pomegranate jewels in the salad is really quite nice.

Pomegranate Walnut Salad with Maple Cranberry Vinaigrette

with Dried Cranberries, Apricots and Mixed Cheeses

• Organic Herb Mix (or mixed greens)
• Pomegranate Seeds
• Shards of Parmesan Cheese (cut very thin slices off the edge of a hunk of parmesan)
• Toasted Walnuts, chopped roughly
• Dried Cranberries
• Chopped dried Apricots
• Blue cheese crumbles

First make the dressing and let it set to mix the flavors while you prepare the salad.

Fill the salad bowl 3/4 full with the organic herb mix, and sprinkle with remaining ingredients as you please. Drizzle with Maple Cranberry Vinaigrette.

Maple Cranberry Vinaigrette Salad Dressing

• 3/4 cup cranberry raspberry vinegar (recipe here)
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1 Tablespoon strawberry or raspberry jam
• 2 Tablespoons Dijon, Spicy Brown or other fancy mustard (I used garlic peppercorn mustard)
• 2 Tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground mustard seed
• A couple of basil leaves, a small sprig of rosemary, and several sprigs of fresh dill weed

Mix all ingredients together in a handi chopper and whir until the herbs and garlic are well chopped and everything is mixed well. Refrigerate any of the remaining dressing.

This recipe was shared at Midnight Maniac Meatless Mondays, Totally Tasty Tuesdays, and Full Plate Thursdays.