Salad, Anyone?

The same night as the donut making magic, Lauren whipped up the most delicious dinner salad. My eyes are seriously larger than my stomach, so whenever I'm offered a salad as an entree I think I'll still be hungry after. I never am. I insist on thinking I need to eat like a football player, I must get that from my Dad. Anywho, this salad, as usual, totally filled me up and and was gorgeous to look at. Such a great option if you're having some girlfriends over for dinner. It's light enough to be served as an appetizer or along with your dinner as well.

You'll need:

Mixed greens
Salmon - pre cooked and thinly slived
1 avacado
1 lemon
1 tomato
1/3 cup chopped almonds
1 basil bunch for garnish

Helpful hint: Keeping your fresh herbs in a jar with a bit of water prolongs their shelf life! Use things like recycled glass candle holders.

Dressing:

(she kinda made this up as she went along so I'll do my best to remember)

1 bunch of basil
1 bunch of parsley
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup olive oil
1 cup cannellini (white) beans
Salt & pepper to taste

She basically dumped it all into a food processor, add or take away olive oil for desired consistency.

Toss dressing with mixed greens in large bowl.

Slice tomatoes and avacado (don't dice them).



Arrange salad on large dinnder plate, topping it with the sliced salmon last.

Garnish salad with desired amount of basil and chopped almonds. Squeeze juice of lemon over top each salad, and you have yourself a beautiful AND delicious salad!



PS: Toast pita and dip it in the dressing for a pre-dinner snack! Yum!

Quick N Easy

 I decided to throw myself back into the sauna, aka my kitchen in the summer, for a little dinner tonight. All I want to eat is salads and fruits since its 100+ out these days. I went with horseradish skirt steak over a bead of mushrooms and greens. And...YUM! I even have some left over for lunch tomorrow, lucky me!

This is what you'll need:

1 lb of skirt steak
1 tbs horseradish
olive oil
2 garlic cloves
4 cups mixed greens
1/2 lb mixed mushrooms ( I did common and portobello)
1 lemon
salt & pepper to taste
1 tbs balsamic vinegar


Combine horseradish, garlic clove and a bit of EVOO in a bowl. (I added a dash of balsamic to this as well) and rub over one side of meat.

Use a grill pan or a real live grill for these, skirt steak is meant to be served medium-rare so they'll need about 10 minutes MAX on the heat.

Chop your mushrooms into chunks or slice them, whatever you fancy.

Start the sautee process about 5 minutes into your meat grilling. Mushrooms don't take too long to cook, and if you cook them too long they begin to be super chewy. When they're finish be sure to dump out the excess liquid before transferring them into the greens because they tend to lose a lot of moisture when cooking.

Take the juice of half a lemon, 1 (or a little less) tablespoon olive oil, a splash of balsamic vinegar and salt & pepper to season the greens and mushrooms.

When your meat is finished resting (about 5 minutes while covered with foil), slice and serve over top of greens. Simple, right? Right! And so, so good.  I'm making monkey bread tomorrow night while Ryan's working. I hope it lasts longer than 2 days this time ;)...stay tuned for that!