Swiss Salad Delight

Fruity Swiss Salad - Courtesy farm1.static.flickr.com

I was a delighted recipient of an extraordinary swiss wooden fruit basket with the most delicious fruits bedecked along with assorted swiss petite fruits that had me in raptures. Literally.

Lets take the basket first. Its a unique handmade fruit basket made of rubber wood mixed with rose wood. The apple shaped fruit basket can be flipped sideways in such a way that it becomes completely flat, making it portable and re-usable. Ingenious.

But there’s more to this than a fruit basket. The contents included grapes and figs and other tropical fruit grown in the Swiss village of Quinten! Whats remarkable is that mild temperatures all year round there, create a perfect environment to grow these tropical fruits - 434m above sea level! Incomparable.

And best of all. Official Swiss Petite Fruits made of hard candy but tasting like the real thing. Pears, bananas, strawberry, apples bananas and oranges - all in their own flavor. Imaginative.

Here’s how I went ahead to make best use of the contents for my Swiss Salad Delight. First the dressing ingredients.
1/3 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon prepared yellow or brown mustard
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
1/2 cup vegetable oil
To prepare the dressing, in a blender combine vinegar, sugar, mustard, onion powder and poppy seeds and blend for 30 seconds. While machine is running, slowly pour oil through the feed tube and process or blend until smooth.
Next the Salad.
20 grapes, washed
2 medium apples, cored and diced
2 figs,cored and diced
1 head red leaf lettuce, washed and torn into bite-size pieces
4 ounces grated Swiss cheese
4 ounces roasted and salted cashew halves or pieces
And here’s what you do to prepare the salad. In a large bowl combine the grapes, figs, apples, lettuce and cheese. Pour on desired amount of dressing and toss to coat, sprinkle cashews over salad and serve immediately.