Seasonal salads for February

The throw-it-together method of cooking is nothing new in my family, but I’m always amazed with the results.

Sunday my husband came up with a fabulous lunch for us to enjoy. The entrée was leftover chicken and apple sauces sautéed with sliced onions and a little Worchestshire sauce in olive oil.

The accompanying salad was to die for. It was based on Emeril’s recipe for Arurugla Salad with Blood Orange Vinaigrette.

What’s a blood orange? It’s an orange with flesh closer to the color of the darkest grapefruit. And it’s in season right now, though like most citrus, it’s likely being shipped into your area.

Of course, he adapted this recipe to whatever we had on hand:

A 5-oz package of arugula
½ yellow onion, thinly sliced
2-3 cups sliced fresh baby portobellos (at our stores the prices are similar to the average white mushroom
Red pepper flakes
2 blood oranges – 1 peeled into pieces, the other squeezed for juice
Olive oil
One large shallot
Dijon mustard
Sugar
Champagne vinegar

The vinaigrette was poured together to taste from juice from one of the blood oranges, shallots, Dijon mustard, a bit of sugar, olive oil and Champagne vinegar. (How we had Champagne vinegar in our kitchen, I have absolutely no idea.)

The arugula, remaining blood orange onion were tossed.

The mushrooms were sautéed with the red pepper flakes in the olive oil then tossed on the salad.

It’s definitely worth trying. And if you require actual proportions, here’s Emeril’s original recipe.

We also did a second seasonal salad using a couple of pears, lettuce, walnuts and dried cranberries, though I can tell you the kids picked off the toppings in no time. If you're needing actual proportions and don't feel comfortable with the what we've got, we'll use approach, visit Meals Matter for a recipe for an Anjou Pear salad that's close to what we made.

Photo from Wikipedia.