Lots of almonds

Over the summer we purchased a few more cookbooks which sat on our shelf while we gave Deborah Madison a workout with our farm box fare. The farm box season is almost over, and our penultimate (I love that word!) delivery had the pleasant surprise of three kinds of lettuce. I decided to check out one of our unused cookbooks for a salad recipe, and couldn't resist looking in Jaqui Malouf's Booty Food: A Date-by Date, Course-by-Course, Nibble-by-Nibble Guide to Cultivating Love and Passion Through Food for an appropriate recipe to celebrate the mimosa tree that James had planted for me in our front yard. I found a recipe called Boston Bibb Salad with Almonds, Oranges, and Parisian Mustard Vinaigrette. Malouf explains that there is "no lettuce more sensual as silky as Boston Bibb." I have to say here that I have never heard of Boston Bibb lettuce, nor do I know if any of the kinds I used was Boston Bibb, but I live near Boston, so that should count for something, anyway.

I arranged the lettuce pieces onto two plates, and to each of these I added some almond slivers that had been toasted in butter for 3 minutes, and also divided one large peeled, sectioned, and de-membraned  orange between the two servings. The dressing was rather simple: 2T each of Dijon mustard, olive oil, and red wine vinegar, along with a bit of salt and pepper placed in a blender and mixed until creamy. This was drizzled over the salads.

We also prepared some date and almond pilaf from the Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home to complete the meal.

To cap off our meal we toasted our newly planted mimosa tree with some champagne mimosas. James knew I have wanted a mimosa tree ever since I was a little girl. He had to ask at quite a few nurseries before he was able to score one. He is quite romantic.