Pasta Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette/Mayonnaise Dressing

Pasta Salad Ingredients - Feel free to swap out or add ingredients to your liking. Amounts below are a guide, not a requirement.

•  16 oz cooked rigatoni pasta
• 1/2 cup of chopped celery 
• 1/4 cup of chopped pepperoni
• 1/2 cup of chopped pickled banana peppers/pepperoncini
• 1/2 cup or 1/2 of a chopped white onion 
• 6 mozzarella sticks sliced into thin discs 
• 3/4 cup of black olives sliced in half 
• 2 large tomatoes chopped 

Dressing

• 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar 
• 1/4 cup of olive oil 
• 1 tbsp of oregano 
• 1 tbsp of basil sweet 
• 1 tbsp of parsley 
• 1 tsp of onion powder 
• 1 tsp of garlic powder 
• 2 tsp of salt 
• 2 tbsp of Dijon mustard
• 1/3 cup of mayonnaise

Garnish 

1/4 cup of shredded parmesan 

1 tbsp of freshly ground black pepper 

Whisk dressing ingredients to combine, pour over salad, and gently stir in so as not to break up the pasta. Let salad marinate and chill in the fridge for at least 5 hours before serving. Add garish of parmesan and pepper right before serving.

Grape Salad

This was shared at a RS Activity - it was delicious and I'm not allergic so YEAY! The person who brought it was vague about the ingredients so I googled and selected the following recipe, as pretty darn close! 

 Ingredients: 

• 4 pounds grapes a mix of red and green seedless grapes (I use red or black)
• 1 8 ounce bar of cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup light sour cream
• 1/2 cup vanilla Greek yogurt
• 3 tablespoons confectioners sugar
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons crushed pecans (I leave this off)

• Wash and dry the grapes and remove the stems. Set the grapes aside.
• In a large mixing bowl add the cream cheese, sour cream, Greek yogurt and confectioners sugar. Use an electric mixer to beat the mixture until it is completely smooth. Use a spatula to scrape down the edges and beat for an additional 20 seconds.
• When the cream cheese mixture is light, fluffy and completely smooth stir in the grapes.
  
• At this point you can transfer the mixture to a serving dish (if you aren't serving it in the mixing bowl). Sprinkle the top of the grape salad with brown sugar and crushed pecans
  
• Chill the salad 30 minutes before serving.

Link: https://farmlifediy.com/grape-salad/

Corn Salsa

At our house, we don't sport. So we don't watch the Superbowl.
But sometimes it matches up with Groundhog Day and we do observe that, haha!
A few years ago we started making "game food" to eat while we watch the movie Groundhog Day. 

This year, we decided to try some new recipes, that ended up worth keeping. And making notes of. 

First up- Corn Salsa! The recipe came from HERE. 

That link will tell you that you need: 
- 2 cups cooked corn, or 3 cobs worth (which can be grilled, or fresh, or frozen)

- 2 small tomatoes, seeded and diced

- 1/2 cup red onion, diced

- 1 scallion, diced

- 1 jalapeno, diced (and seeded for milder flavor)

- 2 tbsp chopped cilantro

- juice from one fresh lime

- salt and pepper to taste 

My husband knows how to cook and cannot just follow a recipe without doing his own thing, haha. He started by broiling the frozen corn. He broiled and tossed til the corn started getting a bit of char on it.

He used two limes worth of juice. He also added some olive oil and this Mexican seasoning to it.  

His only complaint was that it was very dry. Maybe next time he won't seed the tomatoes, and just include the whole thing? However, it was well received, so we'll keep the recipe. 

Very easy, just a lot of chopping. 
And we just ate it with tortilla chips. 

A new favorite salad!

We actually made this meal in October, but since it's a new year and we are attempting to eat healthier, it was time to share it. And it was SO. Yummy!!!

I found this recipe on facebook, at least a couple of months ago. I started following the page for healthy dinner ideas to throw into our mix- I don't follow the Whole 30 plan at all.

This is the photo that was shared with the recipe below.

Hawaiian Pineapple Salad - Whole 30 FB page 

Ingredients:
-mixed romaine greens
-grilled chicken breast
-fresh grilled pineapple slices
-diced avocado
-sliced cherry tomatoes
-diced purple onion
-lime wedges
-unsweetened coconut flakes

Directions:
1. Grill your chicken breast then slice after it is cooked
2. Grill your fresh sliced pineapple slices
3. Lay a bed of romaine lettuce on your plate
4. Then add the remaining toppings
5. Squeeze the limes over your salad as your dressing or you could add any whole30 compliant dressing you have. We love the lime with a little salt for a change up.
6. Sprinkle with shredded unsweetened coconut flakes

We have some picky eaters, lol, so we prepped the various ingredients and set it all out on the table for people to take what they wanted. I think we said something like lettuce and chicken plus at least two more things.

And I enjoyed it so much I ate it for lunch until all the ingredients were gone! We will definitely make this one again!
(and you can always grill your pineapple and chicken on the stove or under the broiler if it's too snowy at your house!)

Mexican Chopped Salad- my version

Well, I absolutely enjoyed tonight's dinner, which means I'm going to be crazy and post it here!
(I know, it's been a few months...but I'm not sure we've tried very many new things that we've liked in that time, so you really aren't missing out...)

Tonight's dinner was totally inspired by THIS recipe which I found on Pinterest. However, I changed it up.
...mostly because I wasn't interested in finding out if I'm allergic to raw zucchini or jicama...wimp? maybe...but allergic reactions to food are not nearly as fun as they sound.

So here's what we did:

Salad:

• 1/2 head chopped ice burg lettuce (in separate bowl) 
• 1 thick chicken breast, cubed and browned in pan with olive oil, black pepper, cumin and granulated garlic
• 3/4 cup sliced frozen bell peppers, chopped 
• 1 red onion, minced
• 3 medium tomatoes, chopped
• 1 fresh corn-off-the-cob
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 avocado, chopped

Dressing: 

• 2 tbsp honey
• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• fresh cilantro

I started by getting the corn boiling, and the chicken browned. My husband and I chopped up all the ingredients and put it all in a bowl. I mixed up the dressing with a fork, and my husband poured into our mini chopper/food processor. He added cilantro to taste, and we have no idea how much, haha... Then he poured it all over the salad ingredients. I chopped up the lettuce and we kept it separate. To serve, we "made little nests"! I put a serving of lettuce on the bottom of each wide bowl, then a big scoop of the salad. 

I was surprised how much I liked it, how much the lettuce added to the dish, and how nicely it filled me up! I added the chicken to make it more of a meal but considering it was only one chicken breast, it was just a nice addition. 

Tortilla chips would have been a nice touch, my husband even suggested Cool Ranch Doritos crumbled over the top. My son added cheese, which works well with all things Mexican. But I really enjoyed it exactly as it was. And aside from the corn and chicken, which you could easily grill, it wasn't a lot of 'cooking' involved, making it perfect for these hot summer days!

*I ate it for two dinners and two lunches in a row, the family had it both nights for dinner. They all liked it much better with Cool Ranch Doritos crumbled into it, haha! I liked it just as it was! 

Bacon Wrapped Chicken

Have you seen this one on facebook yet? My husband decided we needed to try it and it was a hit! I'll let him type it:

Bacon Wrapped, Cream Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breasts-Burt's Version:

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 block (12 oz?) cream cheese
1 bunch of 12 green onions, chopped up
1 tbsp. of onion powder
1 tbsp. of granulated garlic or garlic powder
1 tbsp. of sour cream
2 tbsp. of chives
2 strips of thick sliced bacon

Directions:

Pound out each chicken breast so they are about 1/4" thick or less than a 1/4" thick. Be careful not to make chicken pate. Not the point. You may need to trim the chicken pieces a bit so that they have a semi uniform shape that will be easy to roll.

Whip together using a electric hand mixer the cream cheese, green onions, onion powder, garlic powder, sour cream, and chives until it has taken in some air, is lighter in consistency, and is easily spreadable.

Taking great care to not contaminate the cream cheese spread with raw chicken, put a good size dollop of the mixture on one side of chicken breast and spread it so it evenly coats the one side. Then roll up each flattened piece up to look like a log or a pinwheel as best you can. You may need to use toothpicks to keep them rolled up. Which is fine because you will use the toothpicks with the bacon anyways.

You should have some of the cream cheese mixture left and it will be really good with crackers, so long as you don't poison yourself with salmonella by getting raw chicken juice into the rest of it.

Take each piece of bacon and wrap it around each chicken log in a way that makes the most sense to you. The bacon should be raw and if you use a good thick cut type of bacon, you can even stretch out each piece a little so that it will wrap easier.

Put in a baking dish and cook at 375 for 30 minutes, then turn your oven to broil and cook for another 5 minutes. There is no need to pull the pan out of the oven when you do this. The broiling will help make everything crispy and yummy.

Someone said on the internet that you can sub turkey bacon for the bacon, and a low fat cream cheese to make this healthier, but I think that is just cheating. One other note, there was quite a bit of liquid in the pan after the chicken was done cooking. As I look at this, those drippings probably could have made a really killer gravy if I'd thought of that at the time. Chicken, cream cheese, and bacon drippings. Yes, really killer gravy.

The rest of the meal included sautéed green beans:

1 16oz package of frozen green beans
1 cast iron frying pan (my favorite cooking pan of all time)
Olive Oil, enough to coat the bottom of the pan
1 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. margarine (yes use both if you have them)
Whatever seasoning you would like to use with the green beans. Lemon pepper would work great.

Put the pan over med high heat. When it is hot, put in the oil, butter, and margarine. Let them melt completely and wait until the butter starts to turn brownish. It should have a nutty smell to. Be careful here, because browning butter turns to burned butter quickly. Add the frozen green beans. Toss around so they get coated. (You can pretend you are a chef on Food Network.) Add your seasoning. Add a little more than you think you need. The beans and heat will absorb and mute the flavors. Cook, tossing and stirring continually, until the beans have thoroughly cooked through and even have little black strips on a few of them. That is flavor, not burned bits. A lot of black strips would be burned. Taste them as you cook. When they taste good to you stop cooking them.

And the really good spinach salad that Tanya made:

I just bought a bag of baby spinach leaves and dumped that into the bowl. I hulled and thinly sliced 10-12 strawberries and sprinkled them in, and chopped up a tomato too. Then we chopped up some honey roasted peanuts and sprinkled that over it. We have some Litehouse Huckleberry vinaigrette that we served with it and it was very tasty.

Some craisins, cut up grapes or any other berry would be great with it. Any fruity vinaigrette would go well with this salad.

YUM!

Yvette's Chicken Salad

I saw a recipe for a chicken salad and decided I wanted to make one. After much discussion with my friend Yvette, this is what I ended up doing. And since most of it was her ideas, she gets the credit!

First, I made the Chicken Salad....
3/4 cup red/purple grapes, sliced in half or third
2/3 cup cashews sliced to tiny bits
1 12.5 oz canned chicken, drained, rinsed and cut finer than it comes
1/2 large granny smith apple, diced
2 stalks celery, sliced tiny
2 heaping spoonfuls miracle whip (a little more than 1/3 cup)
few grinds of black pepper

Then, I shredded some iceburg lettuce to bite size pieces in a bowl and drizzled with a mixture of olive oil and lemon juice. I mixed it in a measuring cup and by using more juice than oil, I had about 1/4 cup liquid, and with enough lettuce to serve three of us, I used maybe half the liquid. I mixed the lettuce and dressing together and put it on the plate, then a scoop of the chicken salad on top of that. Served it with a slice of cornbread and there was dinner! mmmmmmm!

(sorry for the lousy picture- it was late and dark...)

6/12/18 ETA: Most of the time we eat it on toasted bread as a sandwich and it is delicious!

Summer Salad!

When I got married, my MIL gave me a few recipes. One was labeled "Burt's Favorite Summer Salad". The thing is, I am allergic to half the ingredients and hey, my husband loves to cook. So I had never made this until Sunday. We decided to make it because it feeds a lot of people and a family reunion lunch is a great time to feed a lot of people, lol. And since the kids don't like it and I can't eat it, he doesn't get it very often. This time he got to keep what was left.

Ingredients: (for this batch)
1 head cabbage, diced?
2 cucumbers, cut into 6ths and sliced thinly (about 6 inches long, about 1.5 inches diameter)
2 green bell peppers diced
6 roma tomatoes, diced
1 onion, finely chopped
1 cup miracle whip (approx)
salt & pepper

First, you cut the cabbage into very small pieces, put it all in a big bowl and use about 2 tsp salt and let it rest for half an hour or so, while you cut the other ingredients. After the veggies are all cut, mix it up, add the miracle whip and a little freshly ground black pepper and mix completely. Chill and let the flavors blend- enJOY!

how to eat eggs:

Either baked into yummy treats like cookies, cake, cheesecake...
or chopped up and hidden in Mom's Potato Salad!
*sorry if you thought this was actually eggs, I really don't like them...

So this is really the only potato salad I actually love. I will eat others, but I don't have to pick anything out of this one, hee hee. I don't like to make it, but someone's gotta do it!

Here's the recipe my mom gave me a few years back:

10 boiled potatoes (or at least one per adult)
6 hard-boiled eggs (or at least one per 2 adults)
a lot of Miracle Whip
squirt of yellow Mustard
squirt of Ketchup
Salt
ground black Pepper
Paprika
Celery Seed

I cube the potatoes and use an egg slicer about three times on the eggs. I didn't have celery seed so I used just a smidge of crushed celery leaves. This time around I wanted to eat it well before the flavors had a chance to sit so I also added onion powder. It was tasty!!