Food, not finance: blue cheese salad and onion skins

I previously posted a tidbit about nutritious veggie scraps, and I thought I'd share a sort of full-circle recipe I've been using.  Living in storage while we wait for our home, we lack full kitchen provisions, especially space, our fussy kitchen tools, a real stove, and the cabinet full of spices that make our kitchen magic.  Our "kitchen" is, essentially, a wet bar with a mini-stove.  So we eat out far too much, and we discovered an easy, tasty salad at Macaroni Grill (but their takeout entrees haven't made us eager to head back anytime soon).  We're not dinner-salad people, but this salad has enough going on to make a satisfying meal alongside plain chicken or a leftover protein course.

The salad is yummy, and also requires very little perishable food storage, perfect for temporary lodging. 
Ingredients: lettuce, and 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon (to your taste) each: blue cheese dressing, blue cheese, bacon crumbles, walnuts, pickled red onion, and the fried onion things that Americans use on Thanksgiving green bean casseroles. 

For lettuce, the restaurant uses Bibb, but we use baby butter leaf lettuce, because we can buy it bagged and washed (no salad spinner here).  I prefer to thin the salad dressing with a bit of water.  For the pickled red onion, we're sufficiently addicted to flavor that we broke down and bought raspberry vinegar, so we use that, but a mild wine vinegar would work as well, and plain white vinegar is acceptable, too.  To make: throw lettuce in the bowl, top with a sprinkle of each ingredient, drizzle with salad dressing, crack a little black pepper over top and Enjoy.


Pickled red onion instructions: Cut red onion (as you like it - short, thin strips, or small-to-medium dice), put in a non-acid-reactive container, cover with vinegar, refrigerate.  Best to make it at least a day early.  In a pinch, substitute finely diced fresh red onion for pickled, but do try the pickled!  Pickling takes the "bite" out of the red onion.

Save the onion skins as they're rich in quercetin (boiling them creates a liquid that gives a mild onion-y flavor, and extra nutrients).  I typically use one of two ways, both start by simmering the onion skins in enough water to cover them.  Option 1: boil the liquid down to a rich reduction and add to another recipe like a fresh or canned cream of potato soup, giving a flavor more akin to potato leek soup.  Option 2: Use onion water in place of water in a recipe.