Apple, White Cheddar, and Spinach Salad with Honey-Apple Cider Vinaigrette

Last week of September and the rain came in Monday and didn't leave until Thursday. Construction slows in the rain — you can frame in a drizzle but not in a downpour, and this was a downpour, the kind that turns the site into a mud pit and makes every board slick and every step a negotiation. We lost two days. The builder called twice. I told him the same thing both times: I can't frame faster than God can rain. He didn't find that as funny as I did.

Clay came for supper Wednesday. He's been coming by once a week since the relapse in July, not because I asked him to but because Dr. Rivera suggested routine and Connie's cooking is the most reliable routine in central Kentucky. He looked better — not good, I won't say good, because good is a word I use carefully with Clay these days — but better. He ate two plates of Connie's pork roast. He talked about work, about a guy in his veterans' group who just got a job after two years of not being able to hold one. He was telling the story like he was proud of this man, this stranger, and I thought: that's the Clay I remember. The one who cares about people more than he cares about himself. That Clay is still in there. He's just harder to reach.

My back woke me up at three AM Friday morning — not the seize, just the ache, the deep constant thing that lives in my lower spine now like a tenant I can't evict. I got up and stood in the kitchen in the dark and stretched the way the internet says to stretch and it helped some. Connie found me at four, standing in my underwear doing something that might have been yoga if yoga were invented by a man who doesn't bend. She said nothing. She made coffee. It was four in the morning and she made coffee because I was standing in the kitchen in pain. That woman.

Made apple butter Saturday — twenty pounds of Grimes Golden apples from a farm stand on Highway 68. Peeled, cored, quartered, cooked down in the big pot with sugar and cinnamon and a little allspice until it was dark and thick and smelled like every October Betty ever lived through. Apple butter is patience distilled — six hours of stirring, of watching it reduce, of trusting the heat. Betty made it every fall in a copper kettle over a wood fire in the yard. I make it on the stove because I don't have a copper kettle or a yard fire, but the apples don't know the difference. They just need time.

By the time the apple butter was jarred and cooling on the counter Saturday evening, I’d been on my feet for six hours and the last thing I wanted was another hour at the stove. But we still had apples — the ones too small or too bruised to go in the pot — and Connie suggested we put them to use in something that required exactly no stirring. This salad was her idea: same apples, same fall flavors, but done in ten minutes flat, the honey-cider dressing pulling the whole thing together the way a good season can if you let it.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 10 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

5 oz fresh baby spinach
2 medium apples (Grimes Golden, Honeycrisp, or Fuji), cored and thinly sliced
3 oz white cheddar cheese, shaved or coarsely crumbled
1/3 cup chopped toasted walnuts
1/4 cup dried cranberries
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Instructions

Make the vinaigrette. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together the apple cider vinegar, honey, Dijon mustard, garlic powder, salt, and pepper until combined. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil, whisking constantly, until the dressing is emulsified and smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.
Prep the apples. Core and thinly slice the apples just before assembling to keep them from browning. If you need to prep them ahead, toss the slices in a teaspoon of lemon juice.
Assemble the salad. Spread the baby spinach across a large serving bowl or platter. Arrange the apple slices over the top. Scatter the shaved white cheddar, toasted walnuts, and dried cranberries evenly over the salad.
Dress and serve. Drizzle the honey-apple cider vinaigrette over the salad just before serving. Toss gently at the table or serve the dressing on the side. Eat immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Apple, White Cheddar, and Spinach Salad with Honey-Apple Cider Vinaigrette — When the Apples Have Given Everything They Can Give