Spinach Salad with Strawberries

I bought a flat of strawberries at Costco -- which I really hate to do, because I never finish them all before they go bad. After making a small batch of chocolate covered strawberries (hey, it's still fruit!), I had plenty left over.

I made a delicious spinach and strawberry salad to go with dinner last night. I topped it with the following dressing:

1/2 cup Olive Oil
1/4 cup Red Raspberry Vinegar
1/3 cup Sugar
1 TBSP Poppy Seeds
Dash of paprika

Place all ingredients into a dressing shaker, and shake until blended. The dressing is pretty sweet, so modify the amount of sugar to taste. The salad was just tossed baby spinach and sliced strawberries -- everyone loved it.

I also read up on Tray Freezing at a new favorite blog, Make and Takes. I'm definetly going to do that with rest of the strawberries (if any outlast the dressing). It's so much easier than freezer jam, it takes practically no time, and I'll actually do it.

Sweet Pickin

B and I took the boys to Emmet for some cherry picking. We missed the festival last weekend, but heard the cherries were still on for another couple of weeks. J wasn't feeling well, as he had been running a bit of a fever last night, but E thought it was great fun. He was very proud to pull the bucket around the orchard, even though it was almost as big as he is.

I hope to find a cherry pitter, and freeze some of our little bounty. A co-worker mentioned that her family enjoys frozen cherries -- popped like candy, or in a smoothie. I hope to give that a try.

I think they would go great on a spinach salad, or something. I always love fruit on a green salad, but have a hard time knowing what kind of dressing to use when I make my own. Please share your suggestions or recipes for adding fruit to green salad.

Change: Add a serving of fruit

I was hoping my 'weeks' would go Saturday-Friday, or Monday-Sunday, but it doesn't seem to be working great that way. I am continuing with one change before moving on to the next. My problem this week is that I'm having a really hard time deciding which change to make next.

We are almost out of Pepsi in the fridge, so it seems like a perfect time to give that one up -- but I'm not sure I'm ready to give it up completely. I've tried that in the past, and it seems to me that it is too big of a change for one week.

I've decided instead to add a serving of fruit. That is, I'll make sure to get at least one each day. Most days, I'll admit, I don't eat any.