Deliciously Sweet Salad with Maple, Nuts, Seeds, Blueberries, and Goat Cheese

"We liked this very much, even the husband, who isn't very fond of vegetables in general and NEW ways of serving vegetables in particular. (He actually could not I.D. the blueberries at first--he was p..." See moreushing them off to the side until I asked him about it--thought they were black olives!). I did make a few changes based on necessity. *Resized the recipe to 10 so that I could use up 1 entire bag of romaine (which if you're curious, yields 8 cups of lettuce if you dont squish it down). *Used dried mixed berries instead of just dried cranberries. *Used less blueberries than called for and extra dried berries--this was a choice based on price, because I used fresh. I think I COULD have bought frozen blueberries, thawed & drained them though, because I don't really care if they stain my salad blue. *Used all low-fat feta & no goat cheese. None of the above changes make any real difference overall. Except maybe the feta or sunflower seeds--you need one or both of those to cut the sweetness. The real changes I made were in the dressing. *Used RED balsamic vinegar instead of WHITE because it's what I had. *Used pancake syrup instead of real maple because it's what I had. *Used olive oil instead of grapeseed oil because I couldn't find it at the grocery store. ~It was still tasty even with these substitutions. I mixed my dressing separately from my salad because the salad gets re-bagged and eaten all week and you can't do that with dressing all over it."

"I have made this a few times now, but forgot to review. A couple of times I did not have the goat cheese or Feta and I made anyway. I used Monterey Jack instead. Was still excellent! Thank you, Monica..." See more, for a fresh, unique,and light salad that pairs well with almost any meat and vegetables or as a terrific lunch. Pretty presentation too, for company, if you get plenty of the dark green Romaine too, in it."

"This recipe is fantastic. The only changes I made, and they didn't really alter the recipe, were that I used raspberries instead of blueberries b/c I don't really care for blueberries, and I didn't u..." See morese goat cheese but I did use the feta. Oh, and I used pecans instead of walnuts. I did follow the dressing recipe exactly. I really do think the grapeseed oil makes a difference, if you can find it. It's not as strong of a flavor as olive oil. And use real maple syrup if you can too. I'm sure it would still be good with substitutions but definitely best if you follow the recipe. "