Blog posts Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home: Tika's Druid Salad Recipe

By Linda Curtin

Leaves from the Inn of the Last home is one of my favorite accessories for DragonLance. It's full of all of the fluffiest bits from the TSR DragonLance modules, information on creation of the world, how the characters met, and all kinds of other fascinating stuff.

One of my favorite characters was Tika Waylan Majere. A strong woman whose frying pan was feared by monsters of all sorts. Also a very good cook, having run the inn.

Today we're going to take a look at the From Tika's Cookbook section at the back of the book. Our mission: Druid's Salad. I made a smaller batch than in the original recipe (at the bottom of the page), Tika's clientele must have bigger appetites than Kevin and I do.

I used about 1/4 pound of spinach and about 1/3 pound of mushrooms with 2 Tablespoons each of olive oil and lemon juice.

Start by soaking and washing your spinach, if you have spinach that says it has been washed and is ready to eat, you can skip this step. It's best to let the spinach soak in fresh water for a few minutes to loosen the dirt, then rise it a couple of times.

Drain the water and let the spinach drip a bit.

I have baby spinach so I don't usually take out the stems, but if you have mature spinach or don't care for the stems you can take them out.

To do this fold the spinach leaf in half, grip the stem with one hand, and the folded leaf with the other. Then pull the stem down like unzipping a zipper.

And just a bit more.

The stem will come out taking all of the more fibrous part of the leaf with it. Don't forget to chop the stems up and freeze them in a freezer bag to flavor soup, or make veggie broth out of.

Chop the spinach.

Wash the mushrooms. I rinse them in water and brush off any remaining residue. Some folks brush them with a dry brush.

Slice the mushrooms and add to the spinach.

Mix well.

Add lemon juice and splash with olive oil.

I used bottled lemon juice, but fresh is always better. I haven't tried Tika's method for keeping the seeds out, but I will next time : ) Mix again.

Serve immediately. If you want to prepare ahead just mix the spinach and mushrooms and refrigerate until you are ready to add the dressing. It isn't good leftover more than a few hours.

I served it with seedy crackers and slices of pepper-jack cheese, but it would be great with your bread of choice and hummus, or other spread.

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