Strawberry Summer Salad with Honey Lime Vinaigrette

Two posts in a row from Krisla! In the same weekend! What is this madness. Well, it’s called procrastination during a 3-day weekend. Also, the weather is amazing and my family is having a BBQ with some friends. The plan was to have 30 pounds of crawfish shipped up from Louisiana for the party, but it got lost. Actually, it was given to someone else by accident. Sad day:(

But anyways, I made use of the candied pecans to make a delicious summer salad. I made a sweet and tangy vinaigrette to pair with the crunchy nuts and lovely strawberries, my favorite fruit in the summer. Hope everyone has a fantastic Memorial Day Weekend!

Candied Pecans

I’m sorry. I’ve neglected you.

Baking was put on the back burner. I’ve been… busy and exhausted. My motivation to do anything went down the drain approximately 23 seconds after I took my MCAT exam. And I had a bunch of other crap to get done. But! My life has momentarily slowed down a little bit. I’m ready for ya, Hungry Gnomes readers.

I know what you’re thinking, “Excuses, excuses!” Which is why I’m making it up to you in the form of nuts. Yes. But these are special nuts. Candied nuts. “Pee-cans” to be exact. And they remind me of Christmas time. I know it’s a completely different holiday this weekend (Memorial Day), but who doesn’t like Christmas in May?! I’ll answer that. Nobody. Everyone loves Christmas in May. Okay, I don’t know that for sure, but it doesn’t matter.

These nuts are sweet and salty… in other words, delicious. And they would actually be great in a salad. I’m thinking a sweet summer salad… baby spinach leaves + raspberry vinaigrette + sliced strawberries + candied pecans + a little bit of crumbled feta. Mhmm.

Coconut Cashew Cream Tart with Strawberries

We’ve got a good-news, bad-news situation here.

Bad news: this is our first post of May, which means we are slackin’ food bloggers that’ve been eating their creations instead of sharing them (incidentally, our food-sharing might be more fulfilling to we, the bloggers, than to ye, the blog readers…but that is beside the point).

Good news: this is one g.d. tasty tart, and it is completely worth our worthlessness. I hope.