Chilled Spinach with Carrot Ginger Dressing

I'm a bit behind. Over on The Cleaner Plate Club and Edible KC, the resolution series is still going. But, I've not posted much for recipes or updates here. Life's busy, I do this for free. Even the book has cost more to promote and create than it has in sales.

I do believe in getting kids to eat real food still. My real life is just getting in the way of posting!

Here is a recipe from spring I tossed in a drawer to post and it's August and I am posting it. Give me some time, I'll catch up. 

The pink specks are a pink sea salt, you can use any coarse salt, I just liked the color. Swap sesame seeds for the sunflower seeds as well if you like. This is based on a Japanese cold spinach salad I love called Goma Ae. The dressing happened because of my odd habit of trying to put vegetables in the salad dressing, not just in the salad. (It works really well).

For the spinach: 

12 oz, or one bunch spinach, cleaned, large stems removed and chopped

2 spring onions, sliced thin.

1 tsp. olive oil

Heat the olive oil and sauté the onions until translucent. 

Add the spinach and sauté just until wilted. Allow to cool, then squeeze out the water. Shape the spinach into 4-6 mounds. You will be shocked at how little spinach there seems to be. Spinach loses most of it's volume in water. Chill the mounds.

Dressing:

4 medium carrots, peeled and steamed to tender

1 small clove garlic

2 Tbs. white vinegar 

1 Tbs. lemon juice

1 Tbs. soy sauce
1 Tbs. grated ginger (a jar variety is easy and works well)

1/2 cup canola and coconut oil blend (or just one or the other oil)

pinch of salt (1/8 tsp.)

2 Tbs. honey

Blend the dressing ingredients in the blender until smooth. You will want to serve this room temperature. It's a very thick dressing when chilled. Spoon dressing into 6 small bowls, about 1/4 cup per each. Add a mound of spinach in each dish. Top with sesame seeds or sunflower seeds and coarse sea salt.