Salad, honey/mustard, garlic/ginger dressing

This post shows a dressing conceived of as pairs. Here oil and vinegar. How much? As much as you imagine poured over the entire pile of ingredients with extra. What ratio? That changes depending on the intensity of acid. Here rice vinegar, a bit on the sweet side of vinegars, lighter than most vinegars, so more rice vinegar than, say, cider vinegar or wine vinegar or balsamic or malted vinegar. This works by itself, you can stop here.

Mustard and honey. This is powdered mustard, but prepared mustard works too, that would put in additional vinegar. If not honey, then anything else that is sweet, even fruit preserves as spread on toast work very well.

This works by itself, you can stop here.

Fresh ginger and fresh garlic are Asian elements. Their flavors are strong. They both have powdered analogues, and they can be substituted, but those are hardly the same thing. 

Salt and pepper.

You needn't stop here. You can continue with herbs, currants, nuts, chiles or what have you. Elaborate however you wish.

Croutons add so much to a salad. Either croutons or crackers. A salad is naked without them. Fresh bread fried and tossed around in olive oil is excellent. Baking will toast all sides evenly, I prefer them irregular and incompletely fried, but that is my personal preference. It helps keep them slightly softer somewhat more vulnerable to liquid. 

No messing around with avocado. I prefer large chunks so they do not disappear. Cut a grid in each half of no more than 3X3, but 2X3 is even better. That way each piece is a fork full. The avocado is usually treated separately, either heavily peppered before adding or rolled in the dressing in order to help it stand out and to preserve its color.

I am glad the goat's cheese is gone. Good as it is, the longer that stuff is around the more it smells like goat pee in hay.