Warm Spinach Salad

This salad is wonderful, especially if you take the time to make the caramelized walnuts.  I make a double recipe of the walnuts and freeze them for future salads.  They only take a few minutes and they really take the salad to a different level.  The salad recipe makes at least 6 servings, so I make the dressing and warm it up again the next night. This is another recipe from Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's "The Vegan Table."
http://www.vegantable.com/

WARM SPINACH SALAD

12-14 oz of baby spinach
1 medium red onion thinly sliced
1 cup caramelized walnuts (or pecans)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 garlic clove pressed
1 cup balsamic vinegar (I use raspberry balsamic) 
1 Tbl of molasses
fresh ground pepper

Combine spinach, onion and prepared walnuts in a large salad bowl.
In a small saucepan, warm olive oil and saute garlic over low heat just to warm up the oil. After a few minutes add the vinegar, molasses and pepper. Whisking constantly, bring almost to a boil and remove from heat and let cool until it is just warm.  Pour over spinach and toss.  Serve immediately.

CARAMELIZED WALNUTS

1 cup walnuts
1/4 cup sugar and 1 tsp of salt mixed together

 Tear a large piece of tin foil and lay on the counter near the stove. Heat a skillet over high heat.  Add walnuts and toss for 1 minute.  Sprinkle 1/2 the sugar/salt mixture over the nuts stir constantly until the sugar melts.  Add remaining sugar/salt and stir until the sugar melts again.  Pour the walnuts onto the tin foil and spread out until cool. 

As I said above it is just as easy to make a double batch.  Put 1 cup on the salad and wrap up the rest in the tin foil and freeze.