Garbanzo bean salad

Yup, another salad!

Ingredients
4 cups garbanzo beans

4 medium cloves of garlic (minced)

2 medium tomatoes (diced)

1 1/2 medium cucumbers (cored, peeled & chopped)

1 red onion (chopped)

1 celery rib (cut into strips and chopped)

1/2 cup minced parsley

1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

2 Tbs lemon juice

6 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

1/2 tsp onion powder

Salt to taste

Directions:
Prepare ingredients as directed and stir together in a bowl! Makes quite a bit!

MOM Salad

When you come home to your husband making dinner it doesn't matter what it is.... you're either nervous, or grateful or a little of both! But this one got an I LOVE IT! He called this one Mom Salad....because there's a lot going on! :) Made me smile!

Ingredients:
Garbanzo beans
2 different cheese, cubed
Broccoli
Red leaf lettuce
Celery
Tomatoes
Green onions
Carrots

Directions:
Chop it all up and serve with your favorite homemade dressing! We've made this a few times with just whatever we have in the fridge.  I think the things we keep "standard" for this particular salad is the garbanzo beans, cauliflower or broccoli and 2 cheeses.  After that, just make sure "there's a lot going on!"

Taco Salad

Ingredients:
1 lb ground turkey
1-2 cans black beans, drained
1/2 tsp Cumin
1/2 tsp Garlic salt
1/2 tsp Onion salt
1/2 tsp Celery salt
1 small can tomato sauce

Directions:
 Brown ground turkey (beef). Season with spices.  Add tomato sauce and beans.  Stir to combine and heat through.

 

 Serve with choices:
homemade chips
leaf lettuce
tomatoes
cheese
sour cream
salsa
guacamole

Simple Chicken Salad

An old favorite.  My husband had this growing up and we love it!

Ingredients:
1 head of red leaf lettuce, washed and chopped
4 green onions, chopped
2 large tomatoes, chopped
1 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
grated mozzarella cheese
1-2 chicken breasts, seasoned how you like it

Directions:
Cube up and cook your chicken, seasoning heavily (The heavy seasoning allows you to not to have to use any dressing! Great flavor! Win win!)
Chop up your veggies and grate your cheese
Toss everything together in a big bowl.
Voila! Dinner is served!

 

Simple, yet satisfying!

Thai Peanut Salad

I'm never gonna complain of my boys requesting to have this one for dinner!  Even if we just had it recently! :) So much good stuff in there! Glad we all love it!

Ingredients:
Salad:
8 oz whole grain linguine or spaghetti noodles
4-6 C shredded spinach
2 C thinly sliced purple cabbage
1/2 red pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 yellow pepper, thinly sliced
1 medium carrot cut into matchsticks
1/2 cucumber, halved and sliced
3 green onions, diced
1/2 C raw cashews

Dressing:
1/2 C all natural peanut butter
1/4 C lime juice
2 tsp tahini
2 TBLS rice vinegar
1/4 C soy sauce
3 TBLS honey
2 cloves garlic
1 TBLS minced ginger
1/2 C rough chopped cilantro
1/2 C olive oil
1/4 tsp sea salt
Put all the dressing ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.  Finger taste.  If too much citrus flavor, add a bit more honey for the sweet to mask the sour.

Directions:
Cook your linguine noodles according to package directions.  While noodles are boiling begin chopping all your veggies!
In a big serving bowl, toss all of your veggies, greens, peanuts, noodles and dressing together.  Sprinkle red pepper flakes on your own serving if you'd like to add some heat!

Apple Walnut Gouda Salad

Here's a twist on an old classic called Waldorf Salad.  LOVE all these strong flavors together.  They all balanced SO well!

Ingredients:
8 oz Spinach
4 oz Arugula
1 Crisp Apple, we like Fuji, sliced thin or chopped
3 celery stalks, we cut ours into small matchsticks
1 C walnuts, chopped
1 small red onion, sliced into long strips
3/ 4 C unsweetened craisins
4 oz smoked Gouda, shredded

Directions:

We enjoyed this with our Poppy-seed dressing!

Thai Mango Salad

I AM IN LOVE!!!  This is totally my new favorite salad! As with most of my salads, I don't really list exact amounts.  This combination is just amazing!

Ingredients:

 Salad:

   Spinach, a good handful

   Kale, a good handful

   Bean Sprouts, maybe 1/2-1 C

   Mango, 1 large sliced mango will make 3-4 salads

   1/4-1/3 C Shredded Unsweetened Coconut, "Dry-fry" the coconut as if you were stir-frying it 2-3 minutes over medium heat, or until it turns light golden brown and is fragrant.

   Fresh Basil, chopped

   Cashews, small handful

 Dressing: (I'm addicted)

   1/4 C Soy Sauce

   1/4 C Lime juice

   1-2 tsp Chili Garlic Sauce (this is where the heat will come from)

   1-2 TBLS Honey

Who knew that this...

could turn into this! And make me fall in love!

Directions:

Toast the coconut.  Peel the mango.  Chop the veggies.  Rinse the bean sprouts.  Throw everything into your salad bowl and drizzle on some dressing.  (Dressing seems to make enough for 4 salads.) YUM!

Spinach and Broccoli Salad

I think in making this salad for our Thanksgiving feast we combines 2 salads we seem to like. :) (Veggie Feta Salad, and Broccoli Spinach Salad.)No rule against that right?  I didn't take a picture of just the salad, so this will have to do.

Ingredients:
Spinach
Broccoli florets, chopped
Cucumber, chopped
Red onion, diced
1/4 C each, raisins and golden raisins
Walnuts, chopped
Feta cheese, crumbled

Directions:
Chop away and put it all in a bowl.  For dressing we combined some olive oil with balsamic vinegar, maybe in a 2:1 ratio. (Every 2 TBLS olive oil, 1 TBLS vinegar) then sprinkled in a bunch of oregano. Sorry no exact measurements.  It's a salad!  Have fun with it!

Red & Green Salad

My salads seem to have a lot of the same stuff most of the time.  I should get even more variety more often.  I guess we get into what's comfortable right?
  This salad I added some chopped tomatillos. (Just peel away the skin and chop like a tomato.) If you've never had a tomatillo before it has a bit more crunch like a cucumber and some spice too! YUM!

Ingredients:
Spinach
Broccoli
Mushrooms
Tomatillos
Red Pepper
Avocado
Italian Dressing

Fresh Mint Salad

Have you ever gone out to eat and had something you HAD to recreate or at least make similar at home?  We had such an experience at Fadis! Now this wasn't exactly like one of their salads there, but the fresh mint inspired me!  This was so delicious! (Forgot a picture, sorry!)  Guess I'll just have to make it again! :)

Ingredients:
Spinach
Red pepper, chopped
Green Pepper, chopped
Cucumber, diced
Mushrooms, sliced
Tomato, diced
Walnuts, chopped
Fresh Mint, finely chopped
Poppy seed dressing

Chicken, Apple, Avocado Salad

I'm so glad I've been taking pictures of my salads!  I don't really know each day what kind of salad I'm going to have, but when I go grocery shopping I buy a TON of produce so that Christian and I can make a variety all week long.  This idea has been wonderful!  Thanks friends!

Ingredients:

Kale

Spinach

Cucumbers, diced

Apple, chopped

Yellow Pepper, diced

Broccoli, chopped

Chicken (whatever you like.  This was just leftover)

Avocado chunks

Poppy-seed Dressing

Southwest Black Bean Salad

Ingredients:
Spinach
Tomato
Green pepper
Frozen Corn
Black Beans
Avocado
Sprouts
Mrs. Dash fiesta lime Seasoning
Lime Juice

Mushrooms and Salmon Salad

Apparently I was hungry because I forgot to take a picture of my salad yesterday :(  It was delicious too!
Ingredients:
Spinach
Kale
Celery
Mushrooms
Tomato
Green Pepper
Salmon
Avocado
Homemade Italian Dressing

Fried Rice Salad

Ingredients:
Brown Rice

Soy sauce

Frozen Peas

Frozen Corn
These first 4 ingredients I warmed in a pan on the stove top.

Served over spinach

Topped with Sprouts and Avocado

Rainbow Salad

Ingredients:
Spinach
Kale
Tomato, chopped
Carrots, ribboned
Yellow pepper, chopped
Mushrooms, sliced, diced, whatever you like!
Sprouts
Avocado

I also put some leftover pineapple avocado salsa on top.  This was great as a "dressing."

Very Green Salad

I've recently had a request for different ideas on how to make salad "interesting" and not hard to eat everyday for lunch.  So my next few post will probably be pictures and descriptions of the salads I have for lunch this week. :) I don't have amounts of each item listed.  I figure it's a vegetable and you can eat as much as you want to :)  I use a lot of spinach and kale, because I buy it all bagged, the pre-washed stuff.  Saves a little time, since making a salad can take a bit with so much chopping!  But believe me, you do get faster!

Ingredients:
Spinach
Kale
Broccoli, chopped
Green Pepper, chopped
Sprouts
Sunflower seeds
Salmon,  2-3 oz (I just used the canned in water stuff)
Homemade Italian Dressing was fantastic on this!

Layered Salad

Ingredients:
1 head green leaf lettuce, washed & chopped
grated cheese, any flavor!
If we add meat this is where we do it.  (This particular picture has some leftover salmon from frish taocs the night before)
1 1/2 C sliced mushrooms
sliced red onion
1 chopped green pepper
3 diced tomatoes
2 C frozen peas
4 hard boiled eggs, sliced

Directions:
Just chop, and throw layers in one at a time.  We don't toss this salad, for some reason we really like the "layers."  Scoop down to serve!

Dress with your favorite homemade dressing.  On this occasion I drizzled olive oil on and sprinkled with my favorite "garlic lime" seasoning.

Veggie Feta Salad

Ingredients:
dressing
1/4 C olive oil
3 TBLS lemon juice
1 TBLS balsamic vinegar
3/4 tsp dried oregano

salad
1 red pepper, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 red onion, chopped
1 cucumber, chopped
1 bunch broccoli, chopped
3 tomatoes, chopped
12 oz Feta cheese, crumbled

Directions:
In a small bowl mix together the dressing ingredients.
In a large bowl, toss remaining ingredients together.  Pour dressing over the salad and toss again.

"What's in the fridge" Salad

I have found again and again, that the more choices the kids have, the happier they seem to be.  This dinner, is a hit every time, because essentially, they make it themselves!  We give "topping options." But ultimately they are the ones who put it all in their bowl!  And they LOVE it! (We do have some rules though.  They aren't allowed to just have rice, beans and cheese.  They must add at least 2 veggies) :) There is no right way to make this meal.  We just start them off with some rice and let them go at it!  By no means do you have to have ALL of these toppings out at once.  These are all just here as ideas of things we have used and liked.  Get creative!

Ingredients:
Cooked Brown Rice
Red beans
Black Beans
Pinto Beans
Shredded cheese (any flavor, your FAVORITE!)
Chopped spinach
Diced tomatoes
Diced avocado
Sliced green onions
Diced Cucumbers
Diced Peppers
Diced Celery

Directions:
Start your bowl with a big spoon full of brown rice, then top with whatever you want!  So fresh, so easy and so yummy!

Summer Bean Salad

Just because summer is over it doesn't mean you can't still enjoy some "no oven food" for dinner!  Quick, Easy, Yummy!


Ingredients:
1 16 oz can of black beans, rinsed and drained
2-3 Tomatoes, diced
2 C frozen peas
1 C frozen corn
1/3 C green bell pepper, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
2 TBLS balsamic vinegar
2 TBLS olive oil
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 head of romaine lettuce, chopped

Directions:
In a large bowl, combine first 6 ingredients.
In a small bowl combine the vinegar, oil and garlic for the dressing.  Pour over bean mixture.
Toss gently to coat.  Cover and refrigerate all day.(Make in the morning, or night before.)
Serve on a bed of chopped romaine, or lettuce of your liking.  Pictured here is green leaf lettuce.