The BLT Salad

This salad is one of our favorites and for people we've made it for as well!  It's very easy to make simply a base layer of Sweet Butter Lettuce, Diced Tomato, Bolthouse Classic Ranch Dressing, 2oz. Chicken, and 1-2 Crumbled Pieces of Bacon.  This makes one serving and I assemble the salad on large dinner plates and just multiply it by how many people as needed.  It's also nice with Avocado too!

Cottage Cheese and Red Grapes

The other day I experimented and tried a grape with a bite of cottage cheese and it was amazing together like how pineapple is amazing with it! That was fun and I really enjoyed it!  It's simply a 1/2 Cup Cottage Cheese with 100g Red Grapes!

Simply Taco Salad

I had wanted to make a Taco Salad that was decent in the calorie department!  So I chopped up Iceberg Lettuce, added Diced Tomato, Kidney Beans, Shredded Cheddar Cheese, Bolthouse Salsa Ranch Dressing, Crumbled Tortilla Chips, and Taco Seasoned Ground Beef! So simple, but it satisfied my taco salad craving!
This makes one serving and I assemble the salad on large dinner plates and just multiply it by how many people as needed.

Greek Yogurt Strawberry Mango Smoothie

One of my fave afternoon treats is this Greek Yogurt Strawberry Mango Smoothie. I make it with a 1/2 Cup Whole Milk and 1 Cup of Dannon Light & Fit Vanilla Greek Yogurt to up the protein, and 70g or 1/2 cup of frozen strawberries and 70g or 1/2 cup frozen mango. It tastes more like a milk shake!

Another variation I love is 70g or 1/2 cup frozen pineapple instead of mango. You can make it the calories you desire by which milk and yogurt you use. Sometimes I like it with a bit of sweetener too. Smoothies are so flexible!

Lettuce Wraps and Cups

I've been making and enjoying different types of Lettuce Wraps and Cups for awhile now.  They are so good, a nice light crisp bite!  I never knew that using lettuce instead of tortillas or bread could be so amazingly delicious!  I was so skeptical of it for years, but now that I've tried it I really love it and even enjoy it more than the other way because of the light crispness you get with lettuce that is so fresh tasting!  The bonus is all the extra calories you save using lettuce instead but you don't miss out on any flavor!

They are simply Leaves of Lettuce (pretty much any variety you want), Sliced Tomato, Deli Style Chicken or other meat, a slice of cheese like provolone or any other kind you love, and then either a tablespoon of dressing or a serving of cream cheese especially a flavored cream cheese like spicy jalapeno.  The variations and options are endless!

For Wraps I lay some plastic wrap on a plate, lay out some romaine pieces (this works well with those small inner leaves that you can't really use for taco style lettuce cups) add the ingredients and roll it up all tight and twist the ends and peal back the plastic and enjoy!

You can also make them in Lettuce Cup form which skips the plastic and makes them more like a taco style by just adding the ingredients to the center of a nice big leaf.  There's also been times that I've used two pieces of lettuce on the top and bottom to make it like a sandwich as well.  Basically whatever works and is easier with the type and size of lettuce you have!

They make great picnic food!

Asian Inspired Salad

One of my favorite new salad creations is this Asian Inspired Salad. It's so yummy! It tastes like a restaurant quality salad! My hubby loves it too! I added half an ounce of chopped cashews and 5-7 grams of toasted sesame seeds on top of 3 cups American Blend Lettuce (chose it for the firm crunchy lettuce and that it had radish/cabbage/carrot in it), half cup Spiralized Carrot, quarter cup Shredded Cabbage, 2oz. Ginger-Curry Spiced Chicken, and a serving of the Bolthouse Miso Ginger Dressing!  It's also really amazing with drops of Sriracha Sauce, I like about 20 drops, sprinkled throughout it too! It adds a nice spicy heat! Also about 5g of green onion adds a nice flair as well.

This makes one serving and I assemble the salad on large dinner plates and just multiply it by how many people as needed.

The flavors were exciting with the bold miso ginger taste and nuttiness from the toasted sesame and the cashews. The different textures played well together too varying from light and crunchy from the lettuce and nuts to the softer spiralized carrot with the silky dressing. (You can always use shredded carrot or julienned if you don't have a spiralizer.)  It was very filling and satisfying! Eating it reminded me of my favorite Thai salad at Panera Bread or like something we had for dinner at a Thai Restaurant.

It pairs well with a fruity Chardonnay too.  My favorite Chardonnay is Tobin James 2012 James Gang Reserve Chardonnay.  Another pairing that we really enjoyed was the Fancy Pants Sauvignon Blanc that we found at Target.  It was a very light crisp fruity wine!

Lettuce Cup Tacos

We made Lettuce Cup Tacos the other day and I got some good photos! They are simply leaves of Romaine, Taco Seasoned Lean Ground Beef, Shredded Cheddar Cheese, and Sliced Tomato! Really you could do any variation of Taco that you love! So yummy! The lettuce instead of the tortilla is just so light and crisp and we really love it and don't miss the tortilla at all. In fact if I would have known how much I'd love it this way I would have done it a long time ago!!!

I'm not a big fan of low carb, however I am a fan of If-You-Don't-Miss-It-Skip-It!  LOL  The nice thing about swapping the tortilla for lettuce is it reduces the calories and gives you room for other things like extra cheese!  Most of the time you don't really taste the tortilla anyway and it's simply a vehicle for the stuffing, and so using the lettuce instead is a perfect alternative!  You just get all the wonderful flavors you love about a taco!

I liked the idea of keeping all the components separate and build each one as you eat it. I think it was easier than building them all at once.

Heirloom Tomato Salad with Tarragon

The other day I was watching the Barefoot Contessa on Food Network and she visited a guy who grew heirloom tomatoes and she had him share a recipe for an Heirloom Tomato Salad that I just thought looked awesome! SO when I saw some heirloom tomatoes at the grocery store, and having just seen that and hoped to find some, I snatched a few varieties right up! As soon as we got home I made the salad for me and my hubby. The recipe calls for tarragon but I couldn't find any in my store so I had to settle for dried tarragon.

Slice up each variety slightly different. Sprinkle with salt, drizzle with red wine vinegar, and sprinkle with tarragon! Mix it all up and adjust as needed. Then you let it sit and do it's thing. They said no oil because the vinegar does something special with the juices of the tomato making it really sweet. AND IT DOES! It was so good! And each kind of heirloom tomato had a slightly different taste to it too. And I've not really had tarragon before so it's an unusual flavor to me, kinda like a minty taste and a tea type taste to me. Hubby said he thought it tasted a bit like caraway. And it looks like he was right since looking it up right now both have an anise flavor to them! Ina says she usually pairs basil with tomatoes so I think that would probably work well with this idea too. I hope I find some more heirloom tomatoes!

Looking at the recipe just now I see that I didn't add any pepper to mine, I think that would have been nice too. I'll have to do that next time.

Food Adventure...the results are in on the Garden Greens Chopped Eggs and Whole Herbs Recipe!

I saw some really cool looking salads in the Martha Stewart Living Magazine and decided to take a risk and try one. So I picked this Garden Greens Chopped Eggs and Whole Herbs Recipe first. We couldn't find any fresh tarragon so I just skipped it. Also after putting together the dressing and I tasted it...it was awful!!! So we tossed it and just used the Bolthouse Mango Chipotle dressing instead which ended up tasting great with it. I'm pretty sure it was the anchovies that ruined it, but not sure why, they are supposed to taste like a nice salty umami flavor that you can't tell what it is...but these ones tasted like citric acid which is like a vitamin C tablet! EW! So not sure if it was the brand or what the deal was, but seriously I don't think it was what it was supposed to be like!

Other than that I blanched for the first time! I liked how the green beans (called haricots verts in the recipe) and the snap peas came out that way. I also salted the water tons so that it tasted like sea water. I've seen that tip tons on Food Network from Iron Chef Zakarian to Anne Burrell!!! So I made sure it was strong! I really liked the results and I think I will do it again. I especially liked the Snap Peas done that way and would try it again for another recipe idea in the future! The green beans were okay in the salad but not my favorite part of it either.

I also found that I really enjoyed the egg in the salad too and I have an idea to try and create something that has the flavors of a deviled egg but in salad form. Not sure how it will work up yet but I have it percolating in the back of my mind!

Another thing I found out from this foodie adventure is that I really, really, really, really, really dislike the flavor of parsley!!! I have never really liked it but I thought just give it a chance but it was SO strong in this recipe. I tried eating it anyway but it was so bitter and unpleasant that I ended up picking out what was left half way through my salad and it was so much better without it! So if you really love parsley you might really love this recipe, but if you don't either skip it or skip the parsley! LOL

So I'm 50/50 on this adventure, I liked some things but hated others. The nice thing is that it's a learning experience! Now I'll be able to try other things and maybe have a better idea going in of what I will like or not.

If I was to make it again, I would completely change it!!! LOL I would do a bed of baby arugula instead of the baby spinach, I just prefer the peppery flavor of the baby arugula better.  What I would do again would be the blanched snap peas, the chopped egg, and the Bolthouse Mango Chipotle Dressing with some salt and pepper on top. Everything else I would skip.