Summertime "Fruity" Salad...

This evening I decided to make us big salads for dinner.  I wanted to do something different.  My youngest son used to always try and convince me to order a garden salad with chicken and strawberries at Panera that he loved, and I always said "ewwww", no thanks.  Well, I just happened to have some cooked chicken breast in the fridge, some strawberries and an orange...so I decided that tonight would be the night I gave it a go.  I chunked the chicken breast, chopped up a couple small heads of artisan romaine lettuce and then sliced strawberries and cut up a navel orange.  While I prepped the salad fixings, I popped some sliced almonds into my oven and toasted them until lightly browned and crunchy because they would become my "croutons" for added crunch.  Green salads that have fruit in them are frequently paired with a sweeter type of poppy seed dressing.  I decided to make my own version since I'm not particularly fond of sweeter dressings in general.  Since people frequently ask me about my dressing, I decided to pour it into a little ramekin and place it in my salad for you to see.  To make my dressing (for my salad only), I poured 2 tablespoons of avocado oil and 2 tablespoons of pomegranate infused red wine vinegar into a small glass measuring cup and added a pinch of Celtic sea salt and 1 tablespoon of Swerve confectioners style sweetener and whisked it together with my little mini whisk; I added a generous pinch of poppy seeds and whisked it again...and then tasted for seasoning (I added a touch more salt). It had a nice tangy flavor with a lightly sweet undertone and was a great combination of flavors. Note, that even though it may appear that there is a lot of fruit in my salad, there is actually only 2 thinly sliced strawberries in the salad and about 1/3 of a navel orange cut up in it -- and all the fruit is on top. I snapped a few photos for you to see below.  Enjoy!