Undressing a Salad

What's a salad without dressing? Oil and vinegar, homemade herb vinaigrette, ranch, raspberry vinaigrette -- always interesting recipes out there for dressings for salad. Some folks do not eat dressing on salads. I never really liked dressings to be honest. Occasionally, I'll make a dressing for a change (thus, the raspberry vinaigrette above), but always revert back to my old standby no dressing. Instead, for years I've gotten into the habit of feta cheese or some other sort of shredded cheese piled high atop the greens along with croutons. In January, I gave up cheese and found all commercial croutons WAY too processed with too many ingredients. Now that greens season is upon us, I'm missing the cheese and croutons, but have found a replacement and new ways to dress the salads thanks to my winter cookbook perusal. We had some leftover cookie filling from Christmas. The recipe is a family hand-me-down called "Banichas" which is very similar to Hungarian Nut rolls. The walnut filling that was leftover was frozen and I tried a bit on the salad and absolutely loved it. It satisfied my sweet tooth, and the walnuts add some nutrition to the salad too. Along with the nut filling "dressing", I'm experimenting with fruit atop the salad -- apples, raspberries, strawberries. The fruit, mixed with the sweet nuts, on top of spicy water cress, makes for a delectable salad. Here's the recipe for the nut filling. I strongly recommend making the called for amount (maybe half would be OK) and freezing. Why? Because in smaller amounts the consistency tends to dwindle because of the proportioned liquids getting too small - thus it tends to get to soggy from the liquids. It seems easier to simply make a pile, then freeze it and use as needed. Enjoy!

Nut Filling

2-1/2 pounds English Walnuts - grind (my hubby loves this part -- he uses an antique meat grinder and cranks, while I hold it in place and refill the hopper with nuts to be ground).

1-1/2 cups organic sugar

1/4 to 1/2 cup soy milk (or almond milk works nice too)

1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix ground nuts in sugar, add milk until filling starts to stick together slightly. Freeze, use as needed.