This is not a fruit salad, oh no. This is an answer to “yet another dinner this week should have a green salad with it. I am TIRED of normal green salad.” My husband thought this was amazingly delicious and horked down like four servings…which is a good thing, because fully dressed salads like this generally don’t save well. I’m pretty sure this one wouldn’t, but like I said, Sean ate so much of it that we didn’t have to find out :D. Even the two year old ate some of it!

I’m using a store-bought poppy seed dressing for the dressing base, which does in fact contain some normal sugar. This particular one is the Brianna’s brand. You can make such dressings yourself, there are recipes all over the internet, and I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to tweak one to use a lower glycemic index sweetener, if you want. I almost did, in fact, but I already had this in the fridge to use, so <shrug>. One way or the other, this is very tasty and I hope you enjoy it!

Pear and Swiss Salad

Ingredients:

• 1/2 a large head romaine lettuce
• 1 ripe Bartlett pear
• 1/2 cup walnuts, measured then chopped finely
• 1/4 cup golden raisins
• 1/2 cup grated swiss cheese
• 1/3 cup poppy seed salad dressing
• 2 tsp lemon juice

Directions:

1. Chop or tear the lettuce to your preferred salad-leaf size. Dice the pear into reasonably salad-sized chunks; mine were maybe a quarter of an inch dice, perhaps a tad smaller. Finely chop the walnuts.

2. Whisk together the poppy seed dressing and the lemon juice in a small bowl. Set aside.

3. Put the lettuce in a large bowl, big enough to mix things around in when you add the dressing later. Top with the pear and walnut chunks and the golden raisins. Add most of the swiss cheese, setting aside some to sprinkle over the top at the end (you can also do this with a few walnuts, if you want).

4. Pour the dressing mixture over the top and toss it all together thoroughly with tongs. Transfer to a smaller serving bowl if you’re going to (I didn’t really need to, but if you want you can) and sprinkle the reserved cheese (and nuts, if you did that) over the top. Serve immediately and enjoy!