Exploits of a Vegan Wannabe

I made a salad the other night that transformed our lives forever. I will never again look at a bag of salad with boredom or disdain.  Here is the recipe for the key ingredient, the spicy candied walnuts, oh my.

Ingredients

1  C  Raw walnuts

1/3  C Sugar

1Tsp Cayenne

1 Tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice

Dash of sea salt

Make It Happen

~Toast the walnuts in a dry pan over medium low heat. Keep the nuts moving in the pan until you can smell them. Immediately take them off the heat and transfer to a bowl.

~In a heavy saucepan heat the sugar and spices over medium heat. Keep moving the sugar until it melts and becomes a rich brown liquid. The sugar will stay sugary for what seems like forever. You feel as though the sugar will never melt and become liquid, but I swear it will…keep stirring.

~Once the sugar is completely melted, add the nuts and coat well.

~Remove from heat and spread as quickly as you can onto parchment or a baking mat. They harden instantaneously, so separate them as quickly as you can and dust with sea salt.

If some of them do harden in a mass, just break them apart..no biggie.

~Hide them so you don’t finish them off before you dress the salad.

Next, I tossed a bag of  mixed greens with our favorite garlic vinaigrette dressing, added eight figs that I had cut into quarters and the spicy candied walnuts.

Photo By: S. Duquet

I am not even kidding, you have never seen people enjoy a salad like this. We were experiencing it with the intensity of heartbreak,  love and loss. The emotion around the table was palpable. When our salads were gone I thought we might have to talk about it so we could grieve together. When I was preparing the salad,  it took every ounce of self control I had to photograph it and not lunge at it like it was trying to escape.

Find some figs, beautiful apples or fruit of choice and whip up some spicy candied love. You will never scowl at a bag of salad again. Sometimes we need to help ourselves fall back in  love with the good stuff and that is okay.

Random request

I would love to have an application on the blog to make the recipes printer- friendly. Are there any technologically savvy readers out there that know how to do this?  I thought I would ask all of you first. That will be so fantastic. Thank you for thinking about it.

Have a delicious day.

*The spicy, candied walnuts were adapted from a recipe from Simply Recipes

Tags: candied walnuts, compassionate eating, dairy free, fig, fig salad, going veg, Simply recipes, trying vegetarian, vegan, vegan brunch salad, vegan challenge, vegan experience, vegan recipe, vegan wannabe