Post a Comment On: Larissa Another Day

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I remember the first time I had a wedge salad.

I was out with my girlies at a fancy little Italian restaurant for a GNO. They had all been to the restaurant before and were rapidly firing off their orders. I, however never having been there was just short of having an anxiety attack about what to order.

I get like that at new-to-me restaurants. I am totally that person that orders the same thing every single time I go to a restaurant...I like what I like, and if I am going to expend all those calories, I have to know it is going to be worth it.

Know what I am saying??

So at about this time, the waiter is getting closer and closer to taking my order. I am still pretty much undecided, however I have heard one thing repeated over and over again by all my friends...

"I would like the Wedge Salad with that."

To this day I don't remember the entree I ordered. What I do remember?

The Wedge Salad.

Who knew a half a head of lettuce smothered in dressing, brought to me on a teeny tiny wooden cutting board with a steak knife could rock my salad-eating world.

Sadly I moved away from that set of girlies.

Happily, I have made some lovely friends here. They even introduced me to a new restaurant and a new Wedge Salad.

If I thought the first wedge salad was awesome, well this new one was more awesomer.

Yeah, I said it, AWESOMER.

Pretty much because that is the best way to describe it.

Oh how this salad made my day. Love everything about it. Ever little lovely thing.

At my last visit to this particular restaurant, I found myself making mental notes about all the ways I could recreate the salad at home.

Recreate it I did.

I have kind of eaten it several times now.

This salad is eat every bite, scrape every morsel, lick the plate fantastic. I lightened up the dressing. I also used reduced-fat blue cheese. I however, did not scrimp on the bacon.

That would be blaspheme.

We can't have that.

What we can have...

Well, we can have this delightfully AWESOMER salad.

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In the words of my Hubby, "Here's a salad. Eat it. It's good!" (This was his response when I told him he should write my post for me).

I totally agree with him. You should eat it because it is SO, SO good.

Wedge Salad with Garlic Ranch Dressing
serves 4

Print Recipe Here

salad:
2 heads of iceberg lettuce, cored and cut in half
4-5 strips of bacon, cut up and fried
1 cup pecan pieces, candied*
1 granny smith apple, cored and cut in slivers
2 Roma tomatoes, diced up
1 1/2 cups crumbled Blue Cheese

Garlic Ranch Dressing:
1/4 cup light mayonnaise
1/4 cup light sour cream
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
3 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon black pepper
3/4 teaspoon dried parsley
3/4 teaspoon dried dill weed
3/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

 First mix all the ingredients for the dressing and then store in the fridge while preparing the salad.

Place half of the head of lettuce on the plate. Pile on the bacon, pecan pieces, apple slivers, tomatoes, and cheese.

Drizzle dressing over the salad.

Serve with a fork and a steak knife.

*To candy the pecan pieces, heat the pecan pieces in a small frying pan with a 1/2 cup sugar. Continue to stir the pecans and the sugar over medium heat, while the sugar dissolves and coats the pecans. First the sugar will clump, then it will melt and coat the pecans. DO NOT over cook. When the pecans are covered, dump them onto a cutting board and spread out to cool.


Enjoy!!!