Who says salads have to be boring?

• Salads can be pretty darned boring. Seriously.
• If you just throw together iceburg lettuce, diced tomatoes and a couple of snips of onion, you have the sort of carrot food stuff vegetarians are scorned for eating. Frankly, I'm not much of a fan of salads like that. I'd never have stayed a vegetarian if I had to eat those things.
• But if you - as Emeril would say - kick things up a notch, salads can be quite satisfying and tasty.
• Just think of some of your favorite fruits and veggies and toss them together in a bowl and you can pretty much guarantee that it will make a good salad.
• Here's an example to inspire you. I came up with this idea after going to a Farmers' Market around Thanksgiving a couple of years ago...even the turkey eaters chowed down on this offering.
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• Farmers Market Salad
• 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts or slivered almonds
• 1 bunch of spinach, rinsed and torn into bite-size pieces
• 1/2 cup of dried cranberries
• 1/2 cup of crumbled blue cheese
• 2 tomatoes, chopped
• 1 avocado, peeled, pitted and diced
• 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons of raspberry jam
• 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
• 1/3 cup of oil
• salt and pepper, to taste
• •Preheat the oven to 375º F
• •Arrange the nuts in a single layer on a baking sheet. Toast them in the oven for 5 minutes, or until the nuts begin to brown.
• •In a large bowl, toss the spinach, the walnuts, the cranberries, the blue cheese, the tomatoes, the avocado, and the red onion.
• •In a small bowl, whisk together the jam, the vinegar, the oil, and the salt and pepper.
• •Just before you're ready to serve the salad, pour the dressing over it and toss to coat it all.

Vegan.