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Pretty pluots team with spinach and pecans in summer salad

Recipe: Pluot-spinach salad with fig balsamic vinaigrette

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED JUL 17, 2022

Pluot salad — Fig balsamic vinaigrette ties together the elements of this cool salad.
(Photos: Debbie Arrington)

Pluots, a cross between plums and apricots, offer the sweet juicy flavor of their parents. But unlike most plums and apricots, pluots tend to stay crisp longer instead of turning mushy soft.

That makes them ideal for salads. My favorite salad pluot is Emerald Drop. This variety has attractive bright green skin and, when ripe, honey gold flesh. When juicy ripe, it still retains its crunch. That adds texture as well as flavor and color to cool summer salads.

Slices of Emerald Drop pluots look particularly attractive tossed with fresh spinach. Raisins and pecans add more texture (and just a little more sweetness). The fig balsamic vinaigrette pulls it all together.

Other pluot varieties will work, too, as will firm apricots or plums or a combination of both. After all, isn’t that when plouts are – a combination of both?

Pluot-spinach salad

Makes 2 large or 4 side servings

Ingredients:

2 large firm pluots

¼ cup raisins

2 green pluots — These are Emerald Drop pluots, but other varieties or apricots

or plums will work in the salad.

¼ cup pecans, chopped

3 cups spinach

For dressing:

1 tablespoon fig balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons white wine

1 teaspoon sugar

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Instructions:

Wash and pit pluots. Cut fruit into thin slices. Put in a large mixing bowl.

Add raisins and pecans to the bowl.

Prepare dressing. In a jar with a tight-fitting lid, combine balsamic vinegar, olive oil, white wine, sugar, salt and pepper. Shake to combine.

Drizzle dressing over fruit and nut mixture in bowl. Toss gently to coat fruit.

Wash spinach and pat dry. Add to fruit and nut mixture. Toss gently to combine.

Serve immediately.

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RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

Keywords:

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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3

November still offers good weather for fall planting:

* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.

* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.

* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.

* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.

* Plant garlic and onions.

* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.

* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.

* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.

* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.

* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.

* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.

* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.

* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.

* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.

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