Spring Mix Strawberry Salad with Almond Pecan Brittle

It’s hard not to love this strawberry salad; it is a thing of beauty, with the beautiful play of red strawberries on the green salad and the luscious dressing glazing it all in pink. Not to mention the crunchy spiced brittle:! Everything combines so perfectly to create a truly sumptuous creation. It doesn’t seem enough to just call it a salad. It’s more like a poem on a plate. In any ase it has the distnction of being one of my all time favorite meals!

Theres no component of this salad that wouldn’t steal the show all on its own but it’s the rosy dressing that really puts my sense memories into overdrive. And what it reminds me of is nothing like a salad!

My mom used to make a special strawberry dessert that she called Bavarian Creme. It was kind of a cross between a pudding and a mousse with a shot of brandy in it for good measure. She would put it in a big crystal bowl and form a careful pattern of strawberries on top , inevitably signalling some kind of special occassion. My sister and I would invariably request its presence for our birthday dinners and it always got way more attention than any cake! The bowl would, literally, be licked clean. We just loved that stuff!

She fooled us…!

Now, I always thought this was some sophisticated, laborious thing to create because my mother somehow kept its creation under a veil of mystery. I guess she was waiting for the right time to spring it on us. But one day I was flipping through a magazine and came across a Jello ad that featured a dessert looking remarkably like… you guessed it! Bavarian Creme. Let’s just say it was Bavarian Creme! The only thing my mother had actually added was the brandy and I bet you anything that was a direct appeal to my father; he always put a shot of something or other on all his desserts.

Anyway, this dressing? It’s like Bavarian Creme for salad! The same rich pink color, the wonderful infusion of strawberries with just a tiny tartness. But… no Jello required! That means no need for me to prepare it under the cover of night so that my dark secrets are not revealed. I can be proud to share this strawberry salad with the world!

And here’s a little fun fact to go with all that. Strawberries are actually in the rose family. Not to mention that strawberries are not considered to be berries at all! A berry is actually a fleshy fruit that grows from the ovary of a single flower, distiguished by the fact that it has a seed or seeds on the inside of the flesh. It’s pretty obvious that a stawberry wears its seeds on the outside – as do blackberries and raspberries. This makes them ‘aggregate fruits,’ because they actually develop from multiple ovaries of one fruit. Watermelons are actually berries and so are kiwis, bananas and avocados, in case you were wondering. But not strawberries. We’ve all been completely fooled all along.

It’s not just my mom that liked ‘pulling a fast one’.

RAW VEGAN RECIPE: Spring Mix Strawberry Salad with Almond Pecan Brittle

Strawberry Salad Dressing

8 medium strawberries

1/2 cup olive oil

2 Tablespoons raw agave nectar

juice of 2 lemons

Place all ingredients in a high speed blender. Process until smooth and emulsified. Makes3/4 cup.

Almond Pecan Brittle*

1/2 cup araw almonds, soaked overnight, rinsed and drained

1/2 cup raw pecans, soaked overnight, rinsed and drained

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

pinch cayenne pepper

2-3 Tablespoons maple syrup

Drain almonds and pecans and pat dry with paper towels.

Place all ingredients in a food processor, starting with two Tablespoons of the maple syrup. Process until well ground but large chunks still exist. If more moisture is needed, add the extra Tablespoon of maple syrup.

Flatten mixture out on a teflex lined dehydrator sheet and place in dehydrator for 6-8 hours until brittle is very dry. Carefully break into pieces to serve.

Stawberry Salad

4-5 cups mixed greens of choice

Strawberry Salad Dressing

16 strawberries, sliced lengthwise

Assemble by placing greens in bowl first. Scatter with sliced strawberries. Drizzle with the Strawberry Salad Dressing and top with crumbled brittle. SERVES 4.

• Note: There is no reason to miss out on this incredible salad if you dont have a dehydrator. Just chop up some raw almonds and pecans and toss them on top. if you want a little of the spice you can toss the nuts in a tiny bit of maple syrup and sprinkle lightly with cinnamon and ginger!