Brandi's Avocado Cranberry Salad

I have this recipe filed in my recipe book as 'Brandi's Salad', since it was given to me by my friend Brandi. She has a great collection of different excellent salad recipes that she's passed along to me over the years from a cookbook that she got a few Christmases back. The recipe is a bit different and the dressing is homemade, so it's nice to serve when having guests. It also takes only seconds to prepare. I just whipped up a batch for dinner a few seconds ago, since we had some avocados about to go bad in the fridge.

Brandi's Avocado Cranberry Salad

romaine lettuce
avocado
pumpkin seeds
dried cranberries

Dressing:
1/4 C seasoned rice vinegar
1/2 C olive oil
2 tbsp. mayonnaise
2 tsp. maple syrup

Using a good quality olive oil will make a big difference in this dressing. Costco has random companies in from time to time doing samples of their olive oils. Though they tend to cost at least double the price of the generic huge olive oil sold at Costco, it's well worth the investment. I always keep on hand both a good quality olive oil and the generic stuff and choose depending on the recipe I'm making (and whether or not there are guests over the show off to!).