I love this salad. I remember going to Kansas City and Dennis ordered this salad. Inspired, I went home and imitated it!
Easy to make, family and friend favorite. Dennis loves it without the bacon as well. Who would have guessed that!
Ingredients
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup distilled white vinegar or balsalmic
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon minced onion
10 ounces fresh spinach – rinsed, dried and torn into bite-size pieces
1 quart strawberries – cleaned, hulled and sliced (No stawberries?
1/4 cup almonds or walnuts, blanched and slivered
1/4 cup sliced red onions on garnish
4 slices of bacon, crisp (crumbled)
Directions
1.In a medium bowl, whisk together the sesame seeds, poppy seeds, sugar, olive oil, vinegar, paprika, Worcestershire sauce and onion. Cover, and chill for one hour. (You can also mix with your blender.)
2.In a large bowl, combine the spinach, strawberries and almonds. Pour dressing over salad, and toss. Refrigerate 10 to 15 minutes before serving.
Or make it Hot spinach salad –
I have prepared this two ways: hot and cold. Fried and crumbled bacon, then added all dressing ingredients till sugar dissolved. Pour this hot dressing over spinach/strawberries: outa this world! Also delicious prepared cold.
Adding chicken chunks and kiwi is another wonderful variation for a complete, colorful meal in a bowl!
4 large Portobello mushrooms
2/3 cup Ricotta cheese
10 oz bag spinach, cooked, squeezed and chopped
2 tbsp flour
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup monterrey jack or mozzarella cheese, grated or finely diced
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated
2 tsp dried oregano
Instructions
Cut out mushroom stalks at cap. Reserve caps, chop stalks and mix to remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Season to taste. Place mushrooms on a baking sheet, underside up. Mound stuffing on mushrooms and smooth over. Cook in center of preheated oven at 400° F for 20 to 25 minutes until golden.
Sure most of us have had eggplant lasagna or beef lasagna or chicken lasagna, and you can go that direction if you want to, but I had chorizo in my refrigerator and dinner time was approaching…
Lasagna. Bite me!
While many people like plain cheesy lasagna, I think it can be better with a few added ingredients. Not only for taste mind you, but you can add vegetables in there and it is better. When making casserole or a lasagna, there are flavor givers (chorizo, ground beef) and there are flavor sponges like mushrooms, eggplant that absorb the flavors around them. For me, this makes a better dish.
Since chorizo is so rich, I thought by adding eggplant and mushrooms it would provide balance to the dish.Â
2 pounds sauted browned meat and add to the red sauce below. (Chorizo or a combination of ground beef, or chicken or turkey, or italian sausage – removed from the casing.) My husband likes more meat, so he would have liked this lasagna better with more ground beef. He told me this two times!Â
1 diced medium eggplant saute in white wine
8 oz sliced mushrooms sauted in white wine
8 oz fresh spinach
6 cups Cheese Sauce (either four cheese sauce or alfredo sauce)
6 cups Red Spaghetti sauce. (I used garlic and onion sauce. I purposely stayed away from basil or sweet sauce)
3 cups grated cheese. (use Mozzarella or a combination of cheeses. I used cheddar, mozzarella)
8 oz of cottage cheese
1/4 cup parmesan for the top
16 slices pepper jack
1/4Â cup chopped scallions for the top
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes – sprinkle on the top
1 package (16 sheets) no boil lasagna noodles
Once you have the ingredients sauted you are ready to start layering in the pan.Â
Sauted mushrooms and eggplantSauted Chorizo
 Four  layers is your target. I start with a base of red sauce (which has your chorizo in it), top with 4 lasagna noodles or whatever number fits in the bottom of your pan. You can overlap a bit.Â
Next top with cheese sauce, then your vegetables; sauted eggplant and mushrooms; sprinkle with grated cheese. Next add spinach, pepper jack cheese slices and start over.  The cottage cheese is for one of the middle layers. Drop it by teaspoonfuls onto the spinach layer. The cottage cheese lightens the whole mixture and adds texture.
Pepper Jack over spinach
Your last layer should be Cheese Sauce with grated cheese, parmesan and scallions and then sprinkle with red pepper flakes.  It will look nice this way.  You’ll notice small parchment paper tucked in along my baking dish. This lasagna is so deep, and my pan has hand holds, that I need to cover until the dish cooks.
Ready for the oven!
Place in the oven at 375 degrees for 50-60 minutes covered with foil until bubbly, then 10 minutes uncovered to finish melting the cheesy top.Â
Hot from the oven.
Let it cool for 15-20 minutes so it holds its shape for cutting.
You can put this together the morning before or even a week before and freeze. If you do freeze, just extend your oven time to 90 minutes or so.Â
Serve with a nice green salad. If you cool it properly you can see all the layers. Â
Hubby Dennis loves spinach. The man is not a vegetable lover. It was less than a month or so ago, I actually caught him hiding green peas under his mashed potatoes on his plate. He was swirling his potatoes and I asked him, “What are you doing?” I took my fork and lifted and there they were. His peas, hidden under the potatoes. I chuckled and whispered in his ear, “You’re over 40, you don’t have to eat peas if you don’t like them.” He said he didn’t want to hurt my feelings by not eating them.
My feelings are not hurt. For goodness sake, do not eat what you do not like!Â
I happen to love both peas and spinach, but Dennis loves creamed spinach.
If you have ever made spinach, you know that the big bunch of spinach will reduce down to a small amount, so use the whole bag of spinach. Saute in olive oil for 3-5 minutes, add 1/4 cup cream, salt and pepper and serve immediately.
