Mixed Apple Salad over Greens

I snatched up beautiful Cameo and Granny Smith apples from the farmers' market for this recipe, although any variety would work - Braeburns would be lovely too.

Ingredients:
For the dressing:

• 1/4 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons agave nectar
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• Dash of salt
• Dash of black pepper

For the salad:

• 2 cups chopped Granny Smith apple
• 2 cups chopped Cameo apple
• 1/4 cup crumbled vegan blue cheese (such as Veg Cuisine)
• 2 cooked and crumbled Lightlife bacon slices
• 4 cups mixed salad greens

1. To prepare the dressing, whisk together the lemon juice, agave, olive oil, salt, and black pepper; set aside.

2. To prepare the salad, combine the apples with the blue cheese and crumbled bacon in a bowl.  Drizzle with the dressing mixture and toss gently.

3. Serve 1 cup greens on each of 4 plates, and top each serving with 1 cup apple mixture.

A note on buying apples: Whether you're selecting apples from the local market or your grocery store, make sure they are firm and not bruised.  You want apples with smooth skin, and ones that small fresh, not musty.  They'll keep in a pretty fruit bowl on the counter of course, but if you come home with way more apples than intended (ahem, like me) and want to keep them fresh as long as possible, store in a plastic bag in the fridge.

Nutrition Info:
4 servings (1 cup apple mixture, 1 cup greens), Calories 163

Tasting Notes:
Unfortunately this salad wasn't all I had hoped. 1/4 cup lemon juice in the dressing was much too tart, even with the addition of agave, and the dressing also needed a good bit more olive oil (or perhaps a nut oil, like hazelnut). The Granny Smith apple was also too tart for my liking, so next time I will use two sweet varieties - Golden Delicious or McIntosh come to mind, to pair with the Cameos.  I would change the preparation just a little, tossing the greens and apples with the dressing, and then sprinkling with the bacon and blue cheese before serving. And finally, there needed to be more blue cheese, because I can never get enough of Veg Cuisine's soy bleu.

Rating:
3