my Cafe salad, yum!!

I have two favorite salads from two different but equally expensive restaurants in the county (one in SLO and one in Paso). I decided to combine my favorite elements from each and create my very own cafe salad. So here's my fusion salad:

My maple candied Walnut, Apple, Apricot salad.

(super easy!!)

First you need to make your own candied walnuts. You can make them however you prefer but I wanted a recipe that didn't contain either refined sugars or eggs. I found a recipe which I modified to my tastes and to fit the restaurants recipe. The expensive restaurant salad has pepper on their candied walnuts and it's a really nice touch.

Maple Candied Walnuts:

2 cups raw walnut halves

3 tablespoons grade B organic maple syrup

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (my fav is Pasolivo)

(optional ingredients: cinnamon or pepper. also

optional: a pinch of sea salt)

preheat oven to 400 degrees. mix all ingredients into a glass baking dish. Coat the walnuts completely and bake for 12-14 mins, check often to make sure they don't burn. When done immediately transfer to a plate to cool. yum, they're sooooo good!!

Now for the salad itself.

My version of the two salads

contains:

1/2 a granny smith green apple, sliced

3 organic dried apricots, diced

handful of the candied walnuts

spinach

arugula (adds a delicious peppery taste)

honey mustard vinagrette

(instead of making my own from scratch I use the Annie's Organics Lite Honey Mustard Vinagrette)

And the finished product- soooo good and tastes really similar to the restaurant salads I was trying to recreate- not quite as sweet but so delicious!!!