Bacon and Blue Cheese Salad with Cherry Vinaigrette

recipe from Cyntha Nims's book, "Stone Fruit"

• Ready In: 20 mins
• Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 4  slices bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 8  ounces  mixed salad greens, rinsed,tough stems removed,and dried (baby spinach, arugula, red leaf lettuce, frisée, romaine)
• 1⁄2 small  walla walla sweet onion, thinly sliced
• 1⁄2 cup  crumbled oregon blue cheese

• Cherry Vinaigrette

• 3⁄4 lb bing cherries or 3⁄4 lb  other dark sweet cherry
• 1⁄4 cup white wine vinegar
• 1⁄3 cup olive oil
•  salt & freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. For the cherry vinaigrette, pit and halve the cherries and set aside half of them to toss with the salad later.
2. Put the remaining cherries in a food processor or blender with the vinegar and purée until smooth.
3. Add the olive oil and salt and pepper to taste, and purée for another few seconds.
4. Transfer the vinaigrette to a small bowl and set aside.
5. (A blender will purée the cherries more finely than a food processor; if using the latter, you may want to strain out the bits of cherry skin after processing, pressing on the solids with the back of a rubber spatula to extract as much juice as possib) Fry the bacon pieces in a small skillet over medium-high heat until browned and crisp, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes.
6. Scoop them onto paper towels to drain; set aside to cool.
7. Put the salad greens in a salad bowl or other large bowl and scatter the onion and bacon over the top.
8. Rewhisk the cherry vinaigrette to blend, and taste for seasoning, adding a bit more salt or pepper if needed.
9. Drizzle the vinaigrette over the salad, tossing to mix gently and evenly.
10. Arrange the salad on 4 individual plates and sprinkle the blue cheese and remaining cherries evenly over each portion.
11. Serve right away.