A Holiday Salad to Remember: Cranberry-Orange-Avocado with Maple-Glazed Walnuts

This past winter, I was part of a 3-month, residential, personal development program for young adults.  One component of the program involved cooking for one another.  We were split into cooking groups, and each group was responsible for two meals over the three months.  My cooking group lucked into cooking Easter dinner, and decided, in order to accommodate all the food restrictions in our group, to cook a gluten-free, vegan meal.

The cornerstone of our main course was my rice dressing recipe, but we still needed a couple of veggie dishes.  We ended up opting for glazed carrots, and this salad recipe, which was recommended by one of my other group members.  The recipe features mandarin oranges, glazed walnuts, craisins, avocado, and blue cheese (which we decided to omit, since half our cooking group had dairy allergies).  I expected the salad would be tasty, but I was shocked how amazingly it turned out.  It was completely devoured, and even people in our group who hated walnuts with a fiery passion went back for seconds and thirds.

Cranberry-Orange Holiday Salad

3/4-1 cup craisins (dried cranberries)
3/4-1 cup spicy maple-glazed walnuts
1-2 10 oz cans mandarin oranges, drained*
1-2 avocados, cubed
1-2 bags spinach & mixed green salad

cranberry vinaigrette 

*If you want, save the juice you drain off the oranges.  It makes a great base for orange-glazed carrots, and can be used to make tasty salad dressings.

Amounts for this salad are pretty arbitrary - feel free to adjust based on your personal preferences for each ingredient, and how many people you're trying to serve.  (I'd say using 1 bag of salad and the lower amount indicated for each ingredient would feed 4-6 people).

The original recipe calls for cranberry vinaigrette, but didn't provide a recipe.  I couldn't remember what exactly my friend used when he made this salad for Easter, so I came up with my own version for Thanksgiving, based on my basic rules for making a salad dressing.

I used a couple spoonfuls of cranberry sauce (that we had on hand for Thanksgiving dinner anyway) and a dash of maple syrup as my "sweet".  I added a clove of chopped garlic, a spoonful of grainy Dijon mustard, and a couple squirts of "deli-style spicy mustard".  Because I wanted to highlight the cranberry flavour, I used the relatively mild-tasting red wine vinegar.  After mixing all of the above together, I slowly whisked in olive oil until I achieved a desired (and thick) consistency.  Then it was just a matter of pouring on the dressing right before serving!