Endive Salad with Blackberry Vinaigrette

Spring has sprung!  Today new sage plants went in.  As did a new thyme plant.  Last year's thyme is coming back.  We have real chives.  And, the mint is just starting to show.  Crocuses are blooming and daffodils are threatening to.  Our first spring at our new house and we're having fun seeing what's coming up.  We brought starts from the old house, got starts from friends and bought a few plants on close out last season.  Now, we get to see how they look!

Since we were working in the yard, dinner needed to be really easy.  The entrée was a stew that just didn't turn out as I'd have liked.  The rest of that went down the disposal.  As did half of our dinner servings.  Thank goodness for the star of the show - Endive Salad with Blackberry Vinaigrette. 

On Saturday I went over to Mom's to help her with her taxes.  Then, since I was on the west side anyway I headed south to the Garden Center.  It's locally owned and we really like the folks there.  AND, they've got great plants.  So, it's worth the trip.  Well, on the way I decided I'd stop at the Goodwill and see what kind of cookbooks they had at that one.  In addition to a couple of others, I found Lee Bailey's Long Weekends.  Loads of recipes that we'll try.  Like a mango gazpacho with shrimp and grapefruit and jalapeno ice.  Or, a chopped celery, apple and pear salad.  I'm just going to start cooking my way through this cookbook.  First up was the endive salad. We stopped at Artisano's on Saturday to get hostess gifts.  I bought matching sets for myself.  One was blackberry ginger balsamic for this recipe.  They paired it with Persian Lime EVOO.  So even though the recipe called for regular EVOO, I used the Persian Lime.  I also shaved just a little bit of blue cheese onto the salads.  Were they ever good!  I've got enough left for tomorrow - YAY!  Here's how the recipe worked:

Endive Salad with Blackberry Vinaigrette

Ingredients:

6 T olive oil (I used Persian Lime EVOO)
3 T blackberry vinegar (I used blackberry ginger balsamic)
1/2 t kosher salt
1/4 t freshly ground black pepper
1 t Dijon mustard
1 T finely minced shallot
8 large blackberries plus two more per serving
blue cheese - optional
Belgian endive, separated into spears

Directions:

Mix the vinegar, salt, pepper, mustard and shallot. 

Smoosh the eight blackberries and mix them in.  Slowly drizzle in the EVOO, stirring constantly.  Put the endive spears on plates, top each serving with a tablespoon of the dressing, a couple of the other blackberries and a shaving of blue cheese.

adapted from Lee Bailey's Long Weekends