Roasted Yam and Spinach Salad w/ Nuts, Feta and Maple Lime Dressing

Often when I meet people for lunch I chose a large fancy salad with lots of cool ingredients - anything from grains, to greens, to noodles.  It is just too much work at home.  But sometimes I take the time to make them here. Usually they have pretty standard Chef Salad type ingredients, but every once and awhile I stretch myself.

When I saw this recipe on a site called Julia's Album, I copied it down. It did take me a few weeks to make sure I had all the ingredients ready and felt like eating salad for supper (I only cook the evening meal), but finally it all came together.  Best of all, I knew this didn't require a lot of work.  Most of the extra toppings are toss on items including nuts, dried cranberries and crumbled feta.  The dressing only has 3 ingredients. The only real work involved was peeling and dicing the yams and chopping the apples. 

The recipe makes 4 lighter, medium sized salads.  You need to know the appetite of those you are serving. It was perfect for me with a slice of grainy toast, but my husband would need a little more. As he is a meat love, I added some sausages on the side for him.  The only sub I made was to use dark orange yams which I prefer them over the lighter colored sweet potatoes.

I don't normally enjoy fruit like apples in my green salads, but it worked well here.  Maybe that was because it was a typical fall day and the flavors of yams, apples and maple seemed to fit the occasion. And it is a lovely bright salad too, so visually appealing.  As I said, it was on the lighter side, but perfect for me with the toast.  Enjoy!

= = = = 

Roasted Yam and Spinach Salad w/ Nuts and Feta
4 lighter, medium salads (or 6 very small side salads)

Ingredients -
1 lb.                    Dark orange yams
2 T                      Olive oil
½ tsp                   Salt

Maple Lime Dressing -

¼ C                    Extra virgin olive oil
2 T                     Maple syrup
2 T                     Lime juice freshly squeezed

Salad -

6 oz                   Baby spinach

1                        Small green skin on apple chopped
1                        Small red skin on apple chopped
⅓ C                   Pecans toasted, then coarsely chopped
½ C                   Pumpkin seeds toasted
½ C                   Dried cranberries
½ C                   Feta cheese, crumbled

Instructions -

Preheat oven to 400 F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

Peel dark orange yams and dice into ½-inch thick cubes. Add them to a mixing bowl along with 2 tablespoons olive oil, and ¼ teaspoon salt. Toss to combine. Spread yams onto the prepared baking sheet. Roast at 400 F for 10-20 minutes on a medium rack - just until done, but not mushy. This depends on your oven and the size of the yam cubes. Remove from the oven and let cool. 

While yams are cooling, roast the nuts and chop the apples.  Combine the salad dressing ingredients - oil, syrup and lime juice, and whisk until emulsified. 

Now you have 2 choices.  The original recipes says to put all the salad ingredients together in a bowl, drizzle with salad dressing and toss until well combined. This would make sure the salad dressing is evenly distributed. The second option would be divide the spinach onto 4 chilled salad plates, sprinkle 1/4 of each of the 4 toppings on each one decoratively, then drizzle 1/4 of the dressing on each. This makes for a beautiful plating presentation.