Cold Weather Dayenu (It Has Been Enough for Us): Warm Winter Salad

I could have taken it for a week. Or a month. Paris is wonderful and then it's time to go home. The islands are great until you get rock fever. Viagra has taught us that yes, there can be too much of a good thing.

No matter how beautiful you are, it's possible to overstay your welcome. The snow, ice, and freezing rain? It has been enough. I don't want to braise anymore; I don't want to make another soup. I'm tired of stepping in cold wet puddles in my socks.

I'm revolting (and by that I mean taking a stand, not needing a shower).  I want crisp uncooked vegetables in my life again; I want to see green.

 

Which is why I picked up a clamshell of mesclun mix (on sale), last week and tucked it in the fridge. But I felt guilty about it, like it was some culinary anachronism. The only way to deal with this off-season ageda was to find a partner for the lettuces that would bridge the gap between winter and denial; a warm winter salad that would give me hope for frozen-free future.

I had some leftover sliced onions and sweet potato cubes in the fridge (gotta love precut veggies in moments like this). Caramelized onions never fail, so I put some olive oil into a skillet, added the sliced onions, a bit of salt, and let them cook gently until caramelized, about 40 minutes. 

For the sweet potatoes, I did a similar thing: coated a skillet with oil, added the potatoes in one layer and covered them with a lid. I let them cook over medium high heat, and after 15 minutes, they had a crispy brown edge. I added some water, tossed them and cooked until they were yielding, another 10 minutes.

Final step: I combined the greens with caramelized onions, sweet potato cubes, roasted, salted sunflower seeds, salt, pepper, olive oil and sherry vinegar.

The sweet warm vegetables contrasted with the crispy, bouncy lettuce and gave me hope: after all this weather, we're all going to enjoy spring with a vengeance; I just know it.