A Classic Summer Salad

There is something about fresh spinach salad with hot bacon dressing that is an early summer treat like no other. It seems taboo to consume a dressing that consists of well… Bacon Grease! I feel entitled to do it now before it’s too late. After we got Storkbite to bed, I went to work on composing what is basically bacon and eggs over spinach.

One of the complications of mothering an infant and cooking is that I can’t seem to prep anything for a solid time period without stopping to nurse or play or change a diaper. So, I find that if I can get little things accomplished while Storkbite naps then we are good to go and we can get straight to eating when we are hungry after bedtime rather than prepping for hours before our meal. For this salad I hard boiled eggs during the afternoon nap. Of course I forgot about them, but fortunately you can’t destroy a hard boiled egg by letting it go too long. You just have a fire hazard! Once I put it all together, I soaked the spinach from our CSA in cold water to remove the grit. Papa went to work on the bacon and I cut the tomatoes, eggs and red onion. The secret to the sauce is that you have to make essentially a honey moutarde vinagrette in the hot bacon grease. I went the extra step of throwing the red onion in the hot grease to cook it a little, then adding honey, a teaspoon of Maille mustard, a dash of olive oil, salt and pepper.

After a quick run around with a whisk, I poured that on the salad spun spinach and plated the salad.

It’s a decadent thing to eat, but so seasonal and delicious. I look at it like my personal right of passage to summertime.