15 minute salad

Ok, no pictures today but I will be better from here on out. And I promised a friend I would post once a week, so tune in regularly for my lazy healthy recipes!

I took a great salad to a dinner with friends tonight. Romaine with roasted sweet potato and parsley vinaigrette. It turned out great, and I was totally winging it. Salad is so easy to fake, my friends! So be brave! But to give you some guidance, here is what I ended up doing:

First, from Bobby Flay, parsley vinaigrette. Original recipe here.

4 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon honey
1 tsp dried dill
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 a large white onion, sliced
1/4 cup tightly packed fresh flat-leaf parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 medium sweet potato
Seasoning salt or seasoning of choice
Olive oil to drizzle or cooking spray

Salad greens, about 4 cups
Sliced almonds, 2 handfuls (maybe 1/3 cup?)

Directions
Preheat oven to 425. 

Dressing: Combine vinegar, lemon juice, mustard, honey, garlic, onion, parsley, dill, salt and pepper, to taste, and oil in a blender and blend until smooth. 

Sweet potato: cut potato in half length-wise. Slice thinly and toss with a light drizzle of oil and about 1/2 tsp seasoning salt. Spread on baking sheet and cook for 10 min or until tender and starting to brown.

Chop and wash salad greens (I chopped two heads of romaine).

Allow potatoes to cool slightly and then toss everything together.

I literally did this in 15 minutes because I fell asleep and woke up just in time to throw something together using what was on hand, which included an old sweet potato that needed to get used, and some wilting parsley from my last Bountiful Baskets order. This was enough for sides for 5, but if I were wanting to make this a meal salad I would say more like 4 servings, and I probably would have added a can of beans to beef it up.

Salat, ensalada, salad...

Salad a day has been going well, even though Saturday my salad was iceberg lettuce and tomato slices snitched from the hamburger station at my husband's work party. I'd rather not think about the other food option: crawfish. I don't think any amount of time in the South will warm me up to those little mud bugs.

Sunday was romaine, fresh basil, fresh grated ginger, apples, and walnuts. Yum.

Caught in the act of stealing some of Mommy's salad. We start 'em young around here.

Tonight I plan on making a great salad from some delish FRESH FRESH FRESH greens my friend let me pick from her garden this morning. So excited. The more salad you eat, the better lettuce tastes, seriously. I hardly need dressing anymore.

A bounteous life

 We ordered a basket from Bountiful Baskets last week, and my fridge is full to overflowing with glorious vegetables! Besides condiments, the only thing left that isn't a vegetable is my wheat germ and flax meal. It's amazing. I'm so excited to make dinners this week. If you have any sort of produce co-op near you, join in the fun! I'm so excited I discovered that we have one close by here.

 

Salad a day

My goal lately has been a salad a day. It has been remarkably fun. Sometimes I don't get to it until it's time for a bedtime snack, but if I'm going to eat before bed, what better option than some leafy greens? So I'm going to document it here. I may or may not remember photos, but I will try to be good about getting them. Didn't get a picture today, but here's what I ate:

1 cup kale
2 cups romaine
1/4 cup yellow bell pepper
1/4 cup black beans
1 Tbsp homemade date-sweetened vinaigrette (recipe HERE), I like mine thinner than what she does so I thin it out with water, plus it coats the greens more evenly that way and you get just as much flavor with fewer carbs from the dates.

$1000 Weight Loss Challenge

I know, two posts in as many days! I don't know what's come over me. Actually, I just had to get the word out about the fun contest I'm hosting with some other health coaches on my team. See the image below for some details, and if you are interested in getting on board, let me know!

Neglected but not forgotten...and unveiling of my new favorite

I am an inconsistent blogger. Kind of like how I'm inconsistent with my dish washing. But that's a story for another day. I wanted to share my family's absolute favorite veggie burger to date (and trust me, I've tried many a recipe!). I introduce the Crispy Quinoa Cake:

Super delish, not too complicated, I love it. I don't add feta, I do a flax "egg" (1 TB flax 3 TB water), and I use fresh greens chopped instead of wringing the goodness out of frozen spinach...it's so tasty and the whole family loves it, even baby girl.