Cottage Cheese and Blackberry Salad

Cottage Cheese and Blackberry Salad. 

Jeanette and I watched the Duke-UNC basketball game together last night.  She  brought oyster stew and mussels from 42nd Street Oyster Bar, and I made a salad and a dessert.  While shopping at the Fresh Market I spied a container of luscious blackberries that I snapped up as an inspiration for my salad.  I had cottage cheese that I wanted to use and I googled for a salad recipe using those two ingredients.  I found just what I needed.

The recipe called for balsamic glaze that I easily made by adding 1/4 cup sugar to 1 cup of balsamic vinegar in a saucepan and reducing it to about half over medium heat.  This took about 30 minutes.  This can be stored in the fridge for a week or two for future use.  It is much cheaper to make your own balsamic glaze if you have balsamic vinegar on hand.

Balsamic glaze.

On each salad plate I placed a cup of mixed greens and garnished them with the blackberries.

Mixed greens garnished with blackberries. 

I drizzled balsamic glaze over the berries and the greens.

 A scoop of cottage cheese was placed in the middle of each (about 1/3 cup) .

I happened to have both sliced almonds and dried cranberries that I used to garnish the final salad.

This salad made for a good first course that was followed by a bowl of delicious oyster stew and a side of steamed mussels in a garlic butter sauce.

Steamed PEI mussels from 42nd Street Oyster Bar.

First course of Cottage Cheese Blackberry Salad.  

And in case you haven't heard the Carolina Tarheels came through with a big win!!!!