simple berry salad & vinaigrette

If we are friends in real life, then you know I'm a shameless foodie. My fondness for cooking, eating, and talking/reading/learning about food probably warrants embarrassment, but I'm in far too deep for that. Foodlove has settled into a deeply nerdy part of my heart that I didn't see coming but just cannot hide.

It's kinda like when that girl in my ninth grade English class wrote a book report about the Lord of the Rings trilogy and ended up so obsessed that she spent hours crafting homemade prop replicas including the Phial of Galadriel and leaf-wrapped lembas bread and elven rope, which she then proudly presented to her half-impressed, half-horrified (ok mostly horrified) adolescent peers.

Wait, what? Of course that wasn't me. Well...it's not important.

Anyway-- tonight the foodlove began with some gorgeous blackberries. They've been staring me down since Sunday in all their fat purple glory, and when I peered into my fridge looking for dinner, they practically jumped into my hands. Wondering what to do with them, I scanned the rest of my groceries, and my brain spat out some quick culinary mathematics:

(blackberries + feta + spinach) x (lemon + honey + balsamic) = HECK^YES

Deeelish. I scarfed that goodness down in about two minutes. It tasted like dessert-- but super healthy, only about 200 calories for the whole bowl! Here's the breakdown for one serving:

salad:

2 cups spinach
2/3 cups blackberries
2 tbsp feta

vinaigrette:

1 tbsp honey
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
lemon juice to taste

Mix up the vinaigrette and toss it over the salad. Say whaat? Easiest dinner ever!

What I love about salads is how easy they are to tweak-- you can increase/decrease/add/subtract anything you want. I tend to like more acidity, and these blackberries were especially sweet, so I used extra lemon juice in the vinaigrette. If your berries are more tart, up the honey instead. Walnuts or pecans would be a fantastic addition, and I think sliced apples might taste great too. The nom possibilities are endless.

So, simple blackberry & feta salad, thank you for helping me announce to the blogosphere that I will occasionally detail cooking adventures and post recipes, because I am a Class A foodie/nerd. Also generally just a nerd, but we won't go into that any more than we already have. Yikes.