Tag: salad

Summer Salad

All winter long, it felt like I was on a great quest only instead of a holy grail I was searching for easy and tasty ways to prepare vegetables. In the summer, I don’t have to look very far. Inevitably, when summer rolls around, all I ever want is a nice dinner salad. I think it’s the sunlight that inspires me to eat brightly colored cool foods. I search Pinterest for new summer salad recipes at least once a week. One thing I love about salads is that virtually anything in your kitchen can go in one. That leaves a ton of room for creativity and innovation. But a lot of times salad recipes in cookbooks and online call for ingredients that require a special grocery trip or take too long to prepare, which is great sometimes but not always. Sometimes I just want a plain old dinner salad.

Lately, my favorite salad to make has been just that: one that gets back to the basics. Honestly it reminds me of the kind of salad you’d make at a salad bar, except the ingredients are fresh and haven’t been manhandled by who knows how many strangers.

Summer Salad
Summer Salad

This salad is all veggies (plus some sunflower seeds). It is super easy to prepare, and would be a good option to take for lunch at the office. The recipe as it stands is for one entree-sized salad. If you want to make more just increase the amount of ingredients proportionally.

Summer Salad

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Serves: 1

Ingredients:

  • Handful Mixed Greens and/or Spinach
  • 1 Heart of Romaine
  • 1 Campari Tomato (or other small variety)
  • 1/2 Cup Diced Cucumber
  • 1/2 Cup Diced Carrots (or Matchstick Carrots)
  • 1/2 Cup Chopped Broccoli
  • 1-2 TBL Chopped Red Onion
  • 1/2 a Small Avocado
  • 1 TBL Sunflower Seeds

Combine all ingredients except avocado. Toss. Address vinaigrette and avocado. Toss again. Enjoy!

Honey Dijon Vinaigrette:

1 Teaspoon Each:

  • Honey (or Agave if Vegan)
  • Dijon Mustard
  • Balsamic Vinegar
  • Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • Lemon Juice

summer saladOne important thing to note about this salad is that these proportions are not mandatory. I don’t like much tomato or onion in my salad, so I limited the quantity. One the other hand I love lettuce and avocado so I added a bit more. If you feel the opposite, just adjust your quantities accordingly! This is just a starting guide, really. The dressing, Honey Dijon Vinaigrette, is one of my favorites, and is generally my go-to for a vegetable salad. You can make a big batch and store in a mason jar, but it only keeps for a few days.

This salad is easy to make and pretty tasty. Plus the fiber and nutrients make it surprisingly filling, even though it is fairly low in calories (around 250). It’s just a nice, crisp and refreshing bowl of vegetables that works best in summer, but could probably be enjoyable all year round!

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Diversifying My Vegetable Repertoire

This week, as promised, has been a huge improvement! I’m finally getting over my passive attitude toward fitness. That means, in addition to more (and better) workouts, I am back on an active search for new vegetable-heavy recipes to try. Nutritionists suggest the majority of your calories should come from vegetables, but since vegetables have the least amount of calories of any food group, it is a bit of an algebraic conundrum. I mean, an ounce of spinach is 10 calories. That is hard to work with when I also should really not eat fewer than 1400-1500 calories per day after workout. So it’s a challenge! Find ways to incorporate more vegetables!

One way I incorporated more vegetables this week was with a super delicious Moroccan salad featuring harissa, a semi-spicy red pepper paste…it almost has the consistency of a red pepper pesto. I had it on a salad at a Moroccan restaurant a few months ago and have been meaning to buy a jar ever since. It’s available at higher end grocers like Fresh Market and I’ve also seen it at Crate & Barrel/Williams Sonoma sort of places. Maybe you have a more diversified local supermarket than me and it’s available there for you as well!

I have always liked Moroccan Carrot Salad, which usually features orange and raisins, and I thought it would be interesting to combine the two Moroccan food-things with which I am most familiar. I looked up some recipes for the carrot salad online and found a few that were all variations on a theme, and I went from there.

moroccan carrot salad

Continue reading “Diversifying My Vegetable Repertoire” →

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Clean and Simple

Have you ever had a junk food hangover? I have noticed in the last seven months that now that I stay away from things like fried food, gluten and sugar most of the time, when I really overindulge, I wake up the next morning feeling like I’ve gone on a bender. And I guess maybe I have. Sugar and carbs are major components of alcohol and junk food.

So, as the weekend before Halloween, I sort of expected that it would not exactly be diet-friendly. But then last night, I made the critical error of skipping dinner before I went out and of course the party we went to had an immaculate spread of all the best party foods. And, of course, a few hours and a couple of bars later, I was starving again, because brownies and spinach dip are not exactly power foods. That meant when I got home late night I wanted to eat some more, and I wasn’t really in the mood for fruit salad…In other words, it was not a health-friendly eating night. Oh, and I forgot to mention that earlier that day I’d gone out for lunch and had both white bread and French fries. Oops.

Now, I have always maintained that days like this are important to avoid going totally crazy and/or giving up, and also because it is nice to give your metabolism a little jolt so it doesn’t get too comfortable. But there are cheat days and then there are CHEAT DAYS. When I woke up this morning feeling groggy, sluggish and a little bit congested, I knew immediately that yesterday might have been full of deliciousness, but it was not full of good choices.

On mornings like this, part of me wants to keep up the junk food momentum. There was a pretty big lobe in my brain suggesting I go grab some Mexican takeout and watch football all day. But the rest of me rejected that idea. Even more than I wanted comfort food, I really wanted to feel healthy instead of disgusting. The best option then seemed like I should eat things that would counteract all the damage I did the day before. Kind of like a mini-cleanse to recover from the weekend.

Clean Southwest Salad with Spicy Balsamic Vinaigrette

Of course, feeling sluggish and generally gross, I didn’t want to put in a whole lot of effort, so I just looked around the kitchen for something that would be quick but still healthy. What I came up with ended up being a huge success. I am super excited about the dressing, in particular. I will definitely keep this in mind for future weekends like this one. We still have several more holidays to go this season!

Clean Southwest Salad

Serves: 2

  • 1 Cup Garlic Quinoa
  • 1/2 Cup Black Beans (Canned, Organic is fine)
  • 1 Cup Fresh Organic Spinach
  • 3 Campari Tomatoes, Diced
  • 1 Small Avocado, Diced
  • Sea Salt & Ground Black Peppercorns to taste
  • 1 TBL Spicy Vinaigrette (see below)

Mix together the garlic quinoa and black beans. If the quinoa is already hot, it might be enough to warm the beans. Otherwise, microwave for 30 seconds, or until it is desired temperature. Top with spinach, tomatoes and avocado. Add salt & pepper. Drizzle with the spicy vinaigrette. Eat. Cleanse!

Spicy Balsamic Vinaigrette

Serves: 2

  • 1 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil (Cold-Pressed if possible)
  • 1 Tablespoon Balsamic Vinegar
  • 1 1/2 Teaspoons Sriracha (or to taste)
  • 1 Teaspoon Lime Juice (or juice from 1/2 a lime)
  • 1 Teaspoon 0% Fat Free Greek Yogurt
  • Salt to taste

Add everything to a small bowl, mix well. That’s it.

Spicy Balsamic Vinaigrette

I really enjoyed this salad. It was both light and filling, and it was flavorful enough that it wasn’t too shocking after a day of eating whatever I wanted. In particular, sriracha and balsamic vinegar may not seem like the best match on paper, but seriously, I love this dressing. It’s spicy and robust, but a little sweet too, so no single flavor is overwhelming. The addition of the teaspoon of Greek Yogurt gave it a nice creaminess, and gathered everything else together. The salad itself is nothing particularly innovative, especially since I have written about pretty similar things before. But, the sriracha is just what this combo has been missing, so I am very excited that I’ve evolved the ingredients I’ve always worked with so that now I’m actually looking forward to eating this salad again.

I definitely recommend this for a nice clean lunch either as a recoup or just because it is healthy and delicious. It helped reenergize me and break me out of my junkfood hangover, but I think it will serve just as well to energize me halfway through a particularly dull workday, or basically any time.

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