3 things remind me of High School:
Natty Light. Random land. Panera Bread.
Clearly, I’m from a small town.
A small town where swanky coffee shops and delicious bistros were somewhat foreign concepts. In fact, underage, your chances of scoring a case of beer were far greater than your chances of scoring a fresh pressed coffee. Sad, but true.
Food wise, it wasn’t much better and we often found ourselves dining at the local Panera Bread. Over and over and over. I’m not going to lie though, it wasn’t all that bad. In fact, this is where my once obsession for Panera’s Apple Fuji salad began. Overtime though, I came to my senses and stopped eating it – poor, poor chickens. I’m sorry.
However, out of the clear blue last week, I started craving that damn salad. So, I set out to recreate it – starting with the dressing. I mean, they call it a ‘white balsamic apple vinaigrette’ after all, it can’t be that hard! Wrong. Even the recipe in their published cook book is nothing like I remember. Even if you disregard the taste, the two don’t even look the same. Panera bread’s dressing “creamy white color”. Published Panera Cookbook dressing “Clear”. WTF. So, I decided to just abandoned their version all together and create my own copy-cat recipe.
It took a few tries, but after a slight adjustment this morning, I couldn’t be happier. It’s creamy, it’s tart, and it’s everything I remember! Only, minus the nasty preservatives. Score.
Fuji Apple Salad (serves 2)
Dressing
.3 C raw sour Cream (see below)
.25 C organic apple juice concentrate (cascadian farms in the freezer section)
.25 tsp dijion mustard
Whisk all ingredients together. Set aside.
Assembly
Spring salad mix
1 cippolini onion (thinly sliced)
1 C organic apple chips (I buy the Bare Fruit brand – awesome!)
2 T chopped pecans
.75 C slice cherry tomatoes
In a large bowl, combine all ingredients. Slowly add dressing and mix well.
Raw Sour Cream
1 C soaked cashews
1 C filtered water
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp apple cider vinegar (or, coconut vinegar)
sea salt
In a high-speed blender, blend all ingredients until smooth.
I normally make a large batch of raw sour cream and then make multiple dressings, dips and/or sauces out of one batch. What I don’t use, I freeze!
I should note, I had this dressing this afternoon drizzled over steamed asparagus and I think I’m in love. Seriously, new favorite dressing. Hands. Down.
Thanks for the positive feedback in regards to my first giveaway! If you missed it, buzz on over and enter to win a ‘Foxy Raw’ t-shirt and a few packs of Rawxies – the foxy raw cookie 
Cheers!
P.S. My rawxy email has been acting up the past 24 hours – downloading and then not downloading, which, is effing up the sending process. Any who, once I get it fixed, I’ll be back up and running response wise!
