Lettuce & Apple Salad with Lemon Poppyseed dressing

So many of us are trying to adopt healthier eating patterns and usually fruits and vegetables are the most important feature of such meals. As I've mentioned many times earlier, while I love soups, salads have not always been on my favorite list but there are some versions that I have begun to favour. When my SIL mentioned that she has a new favorite dressing - lemon poppyseed, I decided to try it for some beautiful romaine lettuce that I brought home. It's a sweet and tangy dressing and little did I expect the entire family to like it... even my 3 yr old son who generally favors fried foods/chocolates ate a bowlful of lettuce leaves and left only the apples in the bowl! The toughest critic liking it is always a win in my book. What's more, they wanted an encore for dinner the following day  :)

 ROMAINE & APPLE SALAD with Lemon Poppyseed Dressing|




Ingredients:
Hearts of romaine (rinsed and patted dry) - 2 bunches - chopped into 1 inch pcs

Apple/Pear - 1, chopped into pieces (I peeled it but it's optional)
Sweetened dried cranberries - 1 to 2 tbsp (or use raisins)
Roasted walnuts/almonds - 2 tbsp, chopped

For the dressing - about 1/3 cup
Lemon juice - 2 tbsp
Sugar - 1 tbsp (you can go upto 2 tbsp if you want it more sweet)
Olive oil - 2 tbsp
Dijon Mustard - 1 tsp
Chopped red onion  - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/8 tsp
Pepper - 1/4 tsp
Poppyseeds (khasa khasa) - 1 tsp (Black poppyseeds will have a better impact but I only had the white ones).

Method:

1) In a blender or mixie jar, grind together lemon juice sugar, onion. Blend in the mustard and olive oil. Remove this to a bowl  and add the poppy seeds and stir in to combine with salt and black pepper to taste.


2) Toss the romaine hearts, apples with 2 to 3 tbsp of the lemon poppyseed dressing with some salt and pepper to taste. Toss in the dried cranberries and walnuts and serve. Best when served fresh.

We had a tasty meal by combining a big bowl of this salad, some black bean soup and  this pull apart bread (that was featured on so many blogs last week) - it was far too tempting to not try it out.  I followed the recipe in Lata akka's blog and used sun dried tomatoes and pepper jack cheese for a filling.