Valentine Salad

I love Valentine’s Day, and have always loved Valentine’s Day. Not in a swoony, romantic, fancy-pants date with flowers and chocolates and jewelry kind of way, but in a heart and pink and red and cookies kind of way. To be honest, my favorite Valentine’s Day date is a night home with my sweetheart, my favorite delivery pizza (Papa Johns, I’ll never quit your crust!) and a movie that makes me laugh. This salad, with it’s pink grapefruit, red pomegranate seeds, and adorable white jicama hearts, is probably the most Valentine-y thing I’ve ever made outside of frosted sugar cookies; it would be a great side to your romantic steak or lobster dinner. And hey, it probably would also go really great with pizza.

Valentine Salad

Spinach or spring green mix

1 medium grapefruit, segmented, each segment cut into thirds
1 small jicama, peeled and sliced thin
1/2 cup pomegranate seeds
1/2 – 1 whole English cucumber, seeds and pulp scooped out, diced
Sliced almonds (not pictured because I forgot to add them until later)

Brianna’s Poppyseed dressing

Segment your grapefruit first, this tutorial explains that process well, I think. This will be messy, so keep some paper towels handy. Also, if you have a paper cut anywhere on your hand, learn from my pain and for the love, WEAR GLOVES. Peel and slice the jicama into thin slices. You will need a small heart-shaped cookie cutter, unless you want to get super fancy with your paring knife. Cut out a bunch of hearts from your jicama slices. Cut the cucumber lengthwise and use a spoon to scoop out the pulpy seed goop, then slice into 4 or more long strips and chop into tiny bits.

Layer your spinach/lettuce, then the grapefruit pieces, jicama hearts, cucumber, pomegranate seeds, and sliced almonds. (Depending on how many people you are serving, and how you like your lettuce/topping ratio for your salad, you may have extra toppings.) Serve with poppyseed dressing, that I’m sure you could make from scratch, but you can also buy a bottle of this stuff for $4 dollars at the grocery store and it is delicious!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

**You could cut the jicama into stars instead of hearts and make an adorable Christmas or holiday salad.