salad

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With all of the marathon weekend activity last weekend, we never got around to doing a big haul grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s as we normally due each weekend. Add in the fact that my knee was too sore for me to get many groceries during the week, and you have a hungry girl without many food options.

Enter morning scones from Starbucks, sushi from Teriyaki House, salads from Rebecca’s and a shrinking bank account, not to mention I felt pretty awful for all of the packaging wasted in each food purchase.

So this week, we did an ample grocery shopping trip and will have to make do with what we have. I am hoping it will spark some creative meals and get me to use up some of the stuff in our freezer or pantry. The challenge starts Monday morning, and I will keep you posted every day.

One thing I hope to eat of lot of this week is salad. Last week, craving something crunchy and cold, I did go to the market to buy a few things for a Cobb-like salad.

I started with a bed of butter lettuce, grape tomatoes, and sliced mini cucumbers. I love cucumbers so much; they feel like such a hydrating addition to a salad.

tomato, butter lettuce, cucumber

Then came the bacon. As you know, I am not a full on vegetarian, even though the majority of my diet is veggie. I was originally craving some real bacon, but watching the Law & Order SVU episode about the slaughterhouse this past week kind of turned me off. . .

Enter Morningstar Farms bacon strips. Even my meat loving husband thought they were close to the real deal, and they provided the salty, smoky crunch we were looking for.

Morningstar Vegetarian Bacon

I added the crumbled bacon to the salad veggies, then topped it with crumbled gorgonzola cheese and hot sauce.

 

Vegetarian Cobb Salad

Soooooo good. So good. This is a meal salad, and it was full of flavors and textures, crunchy cold veggies, crispy “bacon”, and soft, tangy cheese.

Cobb Salad

To make this even more delicious, I bought several avocados to chop up in this salad next time. I kind of want to eat it for 3 meals a day, it is so good. If you like these flavors, definitely give this salad a try. It made a really good lunch one day last week, and I expect that it will make a repeat appearance at my desk this week.

What are your favorite salad toppings?

Did you enter my Cabot Cheese gift box giveaway? Only a couple days left!

Tags: challenge, Food, recipe, salad, Vegetarian

I am already looking forward to lunch today, and I haven’t even eaten breakfast yet! Yesterday I received a box of yummy Mezzetta products to sample, and since they were on the counter when I was brainstorming lunch, they provided huge inspiration for my big salad topper, Mediterranean Bean Dip.

I incorporated Mezzetta Napa Valley capers (after I ate a whole bunch by themselves!). I love the salty, slightly mustardy flavor of capers.

 capers

The bean dip recipe also featured Mezzetta’s Napa Valley Bistro pesto. I  may have eaten a couple of spoonfuls of this out of the jar here too. Hey! I am eating to fuel for a marathon! 🙂 This pesto is soooo good.

pesto

I drained and rinsed a can of pinto beans that I had lying around. I have been buying lots of pinto beans lately. I like how creamy they are, and they are a nice change from the usual black beans or kidney beans I use.

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I added the entire can of beans to my mini food processer along with some salt, pepper, extra virgin olive oil, and a splash of aged balsamic vinegar. After the beans were completely pureed, I added a couple heaping spoonfuls of Mezzetta pesto and pureed everything together again.

pinto beans and spices

Right before I added the dip to our lunch salads, I stirred in a teaspoon of capers into each serving of bean dip.

This dip is AMAZING. I know it sounds really simple, and it is, but it tastes completely like an afternoon in Italy, and the creaminess of the beans and the oil make it so satisfying and filling. In addition to topping salads with the dip, it could easily be served with pita triangles, crostini, and veggies, as a spread for sandwiches and wraps, and I think it would be good rolled in panko and baked or pan fried into a bean burger type of dish.

Thanks to Mezzetta for the samples! I love coming up with new recipes based on a product or two!

Don’t forget to check out my Equal Exchange giveaway . . . a $30 gift certificate to buy coffee, chocolate, tea, or snacks!

Tags: beans, capers, Food, healthy eating, healthy recipe, pesto, recipe, salad, vegetarian recipe

Spring, spring, spring! It still feels like spring, and after a fabulous 10 mile run on Monday night, we decided to open the bottle of  Château Fage 2008 Graves de Vayres Blanc Bordeaux sent to me by the Life Goes Better with Bordeaux campaign. You can read my post on the lovely red that they sent me here.

The white Bordeaux is a lovely pale straw color as you can see here on a sunny spring-like day 🙂

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The nose was slightly floral and woodsy with a very mild citrus fruit taste. Its a very easy wine to drink, not a white that makes you pucker because its too acidic, and not at all buttery or oaky like a Chardonnay. It was perfect chilled for just about an hour as it was cold but still warm enough to really let all of those flavors come out. I am very grateful to the Life Goes Better with Bordeaux campaign for introducing me to another white wine that I like. With warmer days upon us, I have been looking at our wine rack and thinking we may have too much red 🙂 I had never tried white Bordeaux before, and I love that I had the opportunity to try this bottle. Life Goes better with Bordeaux is hosting an event in Boston this May, and I am looking forward to trying more Bordeaux wine, both at the event and before then! If you haven’t checked out their website, do, as it provides helpful suggestions for Bordeaux wine based on the wines you already know you like.

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Since it was such a lovely day, and I was feeling super fit and healthy after my run, I decided on simple salads with lots of yummy ingredients to go with the wine.

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Its funny how I pretty much never get sick of salads, because I am constantly buying new ingredients to add to them. Its a great way to fit in many servings of fruits and veggies at the end of the day. Plus its a nice way to get out of cooking if you just worked a whole day and had a big workout 😉

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Our Monday night salad was a base of baby spinach (about 3 cups for each of us) topped with shredded cabbage, avocado, beets, pickled vegetables, olives, jalapenos, carrots, and Trader Joe’s mango chicken sausage. With all of those yummy flavors, you don’t even need dressing! The zing and the crunch of the pickled veggies especially bring a lot of deliciousness to the salad without adding any fat. The salad went great with the wine, and I suspect the wine would go great with any light meal or mild cheese. As the representative that sent me the wine noted, it would be great for a picnic! Ahhh dreaming of wine country picnics 🙂

What are your favorite salad toppings? Is a salad enough to fill you up as a meal, or do you like to eat something else with it?

Have you enter my Secrets of a Skinny Chef giveaway? It ends on Friday, and my charity raffle for The ALLY Foundation and the chance to win a $100 Williams Sonoma gift card, in addition to a bunch of other great prizes, ends on my birthday, March 20! Since its charity Tuesday on Twitter, might you consider helping me spread the word today? I’d appreciate it! 🙂

Tags: Bordeaux, Food, giveaway, salad, wine, wine and food pairing

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