March 19, 2015

Blood Orange & Avocado Salad

Avocado, Blood Oranges, Easy!, Oranges, Salad 4 Comments

I’m not sure if it’s due to years of academic schedules featuring a week-long break in March, or if it’s exhaustion from darkness and grayness and coldness of mid-west winter, but I always catch a travel bug sometime this time of year. Every year. And most of the time, I just bundle up and wait out the long weeks until warm weather returns. But not this year! In a truly fortunate turn of events, Brad’s presence was requested at a conference in Malibu, California, and I tagged along for the price of a plane ticket and half of a rental car.

The timing could not have been better. Three and a half days of sunshine, ocean breeze, and t-shirt weather was a welcome break from the chilly winter in Ohio.

When I travel, I love visiting local farmers markets, especially if my destination boasts a lengthy growing season. Because I limit my “exotic” produce purchases in Ohio to very special occasions, I jump at the chance to buy them when they’re grown just a few miles away. In southern California, I was after two things: citrus and avocados. And I came back with plenty of both! Definitely worth packing lightly so I could stuff my carry-on with produce on the flight home.

But how to use my precious cargo? I kicked it off when a bright, fresh, totally California salad.

This salad starts with a bed of spinach and mixed greens and ends with a drizzle of blood orange vinaigrette. But the components in the middle provide a delightful mix of textures, flavors, and colors, the most striking of which is the blood orange.

The mottled scarlet flesh of this orange is not just pretty to look at. It’s sweet and enormously juice, which makes it an ideal candidate for doubling both as a salad topping and as a dressing ingredient.

Combined with a wee amount of shallots, black pepper, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil, the blood orange juice produces a lovely dressing that would delight on many salads, not just this one.

Other than mixing the dressing, this salad is as simple as can be and really doesn’t require much explanation. Just toss everything on the greens and ta-da! It’s a beauty!

If you’re looking for a salad that you’ll actually WANT to eat, this is definitely on that list. Creamy avocado, bright citrus, crunchy sunflower seeds, and zesty feta play nicely together. It’s filling and satisfying, features I look for when making salad that serves as a meal.

We still have a good 4-6 weeks of decidedly non-t-shirt weather in Ohio, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t sit back and enjoy a summery salad and pretend we’re somewhere warmer, bluer, and California-y-er.

*sigh*

Blood Orange & Avocado Salad
Adapted from Joy the Baker

Note: This recipe makes enough for one as a main course or 2-3 as a side salad. There will be more dressing than you need for one salad, but it will last for 4-5 days, so you can use it for round two or three later in the week. Also, if you have the chance to make the dressing in advance, it gets even better overnight.

3 blood oranges (1 1/2 for the salad, 1 1/2 for the dressing)
1 T olive oil
1 T balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
2 T minced shallots
a couple cranks of freshly ground black pepper
2 large handfuls of spinach or mixed greens
1/2 a small avocado
1/4 c feta cheese crumbles
1 1/2 T salted sunflower seed kernels

Slice two of the blood oranges in half. Juice three of the halves and strain juice into a small bowl. Slice away the peel of the remaining half and the remaining whole orange, then carefully slice into disks. Set the oranges aside.

To complete the dressing, add the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard, shallots, and black pepper to the blood orange juice and whisk vigorously until combined. Adjust to taste and set aside.

Add spinach to a plate and sprinkle place oranges on top of the spinach. Sprinkle with feta and sunflower seeds. Slice the avocado and peel back the skin, adding the avocado strips to the salad. Shake or whisk dressing once more and drizzle over salad to taste. Serve immediately and dream of California produce.