There are times when everything lines up and comes together for a flavourful experience.  And when the weather behaves so it makes sense for this meal, well life is really good.  November can be really dreary up here.  The autumn colours are long gone, the city has picked up the leaves, days are no longer crisp and clear, no beautiful snow shots at the moment to ease the cold.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anxious to start shoveling the white stuff.  But this past Saturday?  Gorgeous.  Bright sun with a warmth in the air.  Salad weather if you can believe it.

Which is just what I wanted.  I had several ingredients that would make a perfect salad but it is soup weather.  So Saturday was a real treat.  I had posted about pomegranates and two bloggers gave me a great idea to use in salads.  First Richard from REMCooks mentioned his wife likes the pomegranates in a salad and then Claire from An Eye For Food mentioned pomegranates with smoked salmon.  Plus I had figs to use up.  Perfect!  🙂

I made a quick fig jam, very rustic but very good.  I chopped up the figs and in a small saucepan heated them up.

I mushed them as they started to heat up and added about 1/2 cup of organic apple cider.  While that was cooking I started plating the salad.  I used mixed spring greens, yellow and orange peppers, smoked salmon, goat cheese, pomegranate seeds, and then once the jam was done I spooned that round.  Finished with a lemon chive dressing.  I confess, I bought the dressing.  But it looked good and it was.  🙂

This was the best salad I’ve made.  All the flavours came together so well.  It was, I fear, the last hooray for salads until spring now.  This Sunday we’ll wake up to temps of 10F/-12C with wind that will keep us in the negative wind chills most of the day.  I have a feeling the snow pants will be making their first appearance when we walk the dogs.