honey-lemon vinaigrette

 

i used to be a creamy dressing gal, but lately i would rather make my own vinaigrette than choose a store bought one.

 as long as you have some lemons or vinegar, oil, maybe a bit of dijon and some seasonings they sky is the limit.  use some sugar, or honey, or maple syrup to sweeten.  add some hot sauce or red pepper flakes for a spicy kick.  add a dash of soy sauce instead of salt.  this one was based on this vinaigrette recipe and turned out so well.  i might have added a bit more honey than called for as well as some granulated garlic.  it was amazing on a simple salad of red lettuce, tomato and cheese.

a most delicious salad dressing

 this is my current favorite salad dressing and not only do i happily eat more salads when it's around but it's super easy to make too. Honey Mustard Dressing

 all packed up for work - dressing on the bottom, then lettuce, then tomato and croutons.

pickles in process from aloha kitchen

 

i made a full dinner from Aloha Kitchen last weekend - mac salad, shoyu chicken and pickles.

10/10 

the salad was the thai crunch and it was a winner

 i went with the thai crunch salad with peanut dressing and it was so good!  i was very happy with my choice.  the night i was cutting up all the veg i had a screaming headache and i decided to omit the tomatos just to cut down on my prep time so i could go lie down sooner.  i think it was the right call.  

 stealthy salad photo

the olive is from another dish on the plate, not the delicious salad

 

 

green goddess dressing

 

i tried to make my first green goddess dressing and to be honest, it was only ok.  there was just.... something.... that wasn't quite right but we couldn't put our finger on it.  the boy tried it but wasn't a fan, and the mister said it was ok, but never used it again.  i powered through a few more salads but ending up composting the rest.  

kimchi cucumber salad

 

This was one of the first things we made in the new year and what a way to start it off.  It was so delicious and not too spicy - even the Grandpa and the kids all tried it and liked it to varying degrees.  I used this recipe and played around with it a bit.  Super good.

2 tomato salads and 1 cucumber salad

 I whipped up a couple of salads for Sunday dinner recently - a tomato salad and a cuke salad.

I used some infused olive oil and vinegar that I found in the pantry, added some garlic, organo, salt and pepper, and mixed in a bunch of chopped tomatos.

 For the cuke salad I sliced some cucumber thin, and made a dressing with garlic, soy sauce and rice vinegar.

 

 

And the other day I made a beautiful lunch salad for The Mister and I - tomato, feta and pesto.

DEELISH.

REMINDER - bean salad

 That's it.  That's the whole reminder, that my mom's bean salad recipe is so, so good.

Big Mac Bowls

 

I loosely followed the directions for these Keto Big Mac Bowls  - didn't measure anything, left the cabbage raw and used lettuce as well, used diced pickles instead of relish, no huge changes - and it was wonderful!  Even, and I cannot believe I am going to type these words - BOTH KIDS LIKED IT.  

The Boy was especially impressed and thought we should contact McDonalds to tell them about this amazing meal, in case they hadn't heard about it yet.  :)

This was easy and delicious and very customizable.  Give it a try.

carrot ginger dressing

 

I foolishly decided that Buddha Bowls would be a fun dinner that everyone would like, so I spent a bunch of time chopping, prepping and cooking, laying out all the delicious choices, even with some homemade sauce.  I did all that only for my kids to walk into the kitchen and immediately start complaining that this was NOT what they wanted for dinner, and did we have any ramen or macaroni instead.

These people make me tired.

So I enjoyed my buddha bowl, with a bit of rice, some crunchy cabbage, shredded carrot, sauteed onions and peppers, tomatos, a couple of other veggies I no longer remember, with a bit of chicken, and drizzled with some delicous carrot ginger dressing.  I used the recipe linked below and it was very good - a bit too vinegary for us, but we added a bit more honey to balance it out.

Carrot Ginger Dressing

my favorites in july

I am going to chime in with everyone else and say "Can you believe it's August???"

For real!  July seems long and short at the same time and it was a mostly good month.

I feel like August is already going faster so I'm making sure I enjoy it.  Before we can blink Summer will be gone and the snow will be here.

Here's a list of some things I really enjoyed in July -

On Netflix -

  Stranger Things - I wasn't a fan when it first came out and I only made it through one episode before I told The Mister to go ahead and watch without me.  I decided to give it another chance when some friends talked about how good season 3 was, so I watched seasons 1 & 2 by myself and now The Mister and I are about halfway through season 3.

Blown Away - a competition show about glass blowing.  SO GOOD.  Watch it immediately.

Workin' Moms - my Boo (bff) had mentioned this show to me a few times but I don't get many opportunities to watch "regular" TV shows, especially non child friendly ones.  I started watching this one at night in bed after I got caught up on Stranger Things, and I flew through the 2 seasons Netflix has.  The third season will be added in approximately 22 days (not that I am counting....) but season 4 is still in production and wont' be on CBC until late 2020.  Deep breaths.

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Mac Salad - I found an article about Hawaiian Mac Salad on facebook and I made it right away since The Mister loves mac salad and I love Hawaii.  It was very good, and it didn't give me that throat closing feeling that most other mac salads do - maybe from the vinegar?

The bowl didn't last long and I will be making it again soon - Hawaiian Mac Salad

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Last Christmas I did a bit of shopping in the Kamloops Art Gallery Store,

and I picked up a little something for myself as well, a bottle of Thieving Bastards spray from  Element Botanicals.

It is amazing and I love it.  I went back there this month and yay!  They had some new sprays and I picked up Quick Fix and Ritual.

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I joined a gym! Last week was my first week and I went every weekday - Monday to Friday.  I realized how much I missed working out.  My plan is to go during the week - weekends are too hard to get away from the kids.  Once I get rid of this Summer cold/cough thing I've got I am going to ramp up my workouts, and hopefully see some physical and mental progress.

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My work commutes have been feeling pretty funny lately as I am listening to Food: A Love Story by Jim Gaffigan.

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We've been hitting the Saturday Farmers Market every week and it's been a good year.  We've been buying cherries and blueberries almost weekly, as well as gorgeous spinach (out of season now) and lovely potatoes.  We always stop at Bohemia Bakery to see if they have any of their giant soft pretzels, and the kids always talk The Grandpa into buying them a lemonade.

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We introduced the kids to journaling earlier this year and while Spring and Summer have thrown us off our weekly schedule, we get it in when we can.  I am the least artistic person in the world, but I managed some not completely hideous drawings in July thanks to discovering Splendid Scribbles on Instagram.  Scroll through the posts and you will find some easy to follow "how to" posts.

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Happy Holiday Monday!  Have a great day.

Japanese Spinach Salad - Gomae

Gomae is one of my very very favorite Japanese dishes  - and it's easy to make at home! 

We had a meat and cheese and bread dinner one night and I added some Gomae at the last minute because we had a bag of spinach in the fridge.

Never forget how much spinach wilts down when you cook it.  Thank goodness the kids didn't want to eat any of it so there was enough for the adults.

I thought I would make this again and again over the summer but alas I did not.  So this fall and winter will be my season of Gomae, maybe.  It's quick and easy and lasts for a couple of days in the fridge so it would be a good lunch addition.  Just remember to squeeze the spinach as dry as you can get it - make room for that delicious dressing.

Recipe: Spinach with Sesame Sauce (Gomae)

Things with tomatos

Our garden is complete crap this year, as usual.  It is wickedly hot here, very dry, and the smoke from the forest fires has kept us hidden inside for what feels like most of the summer.

We got a few thumb sized tomatos off our plant before it shriveled up into brown twigs, but nothing worth getting excited about.  My parents, on the other hand, are having a booming tomato crop.  We have been graciously helping them out to make sure none of them go to waste.

Here's some of the stuff we've made -

First, because it was one of the best - Avocado Feta Crack Dip which was wicked goooooood.  We ate it as a salad.  I could eat this every day and not get tired of it.  Our was too hideous to take a photo of it as I was not a gentle mixer, but it tasted damn fine.

 We also tried, as part of my cookbook purge on Instagram, Spaghetti Con Salsa Fresca from The Urban Vegan.  Big hit.

I have a few recipes written out from Move Over Santa, Ruby's Doin Christmas! by Ruby Ann Boxcar; and let me tell you that this is a really, really, REALLY good dish.  If only the price of bacon wasn't so ridiculous, I would buy more corn and bacon and make it again today.

Faye Faye's Fried Christmas Corn Dish Delight

altered slightly from Move Over, Santa - Ruby's Doin Christmas!

6 strips of bacon

1/2 small onion, diced finely

1/2 red bell pepper, chopped finely

kernels off of 6 ears of corn

1 large tomato, diced

salt

pepper

Chop bacon into small pieces and fry over medium heat until crisp.  Removed to a plate.  Add the onion and bell pepper to the bacon fat and cook until softened and just starting to brown.  Add the corn and tomato and cook until hot.  Season to taste.  Stir in the bacon and eat!

I am really considering trying the Soda Cracker Pie from the book- basically egg whites, sugar and cracker crumbs.  Has anyone tried it before!  Yes/no?

I made Gwyneth Paltrow's roasted salsa out of her last book It's All Easy.

Our oven is on the fritz so i nearly burned the veggies, but I just pulled off the worst bits and it was fine.  (As I wrote this I suddenly remembered that when I cooked some tomatos from another one of her books, I nearly burned them too.....whoa - 5 years ago!)

The Kids don't like spicy food much, so I left out the peppers.  It was good! 

This one was amazing too.   God, I love when tomatos are in season! We all loved this  

basil spaghetti with cheesy broiled tomatoes.

We are nowhere near done - I have an enormous tub of tomatos sitting on the counter, and there are more ripening in The Grandparents garden as we speak.  I need to find some more recipes asap.

Kale Caesar Salad and a trick to revive stale bread

I have a very on again/off again relationship with kale.  I go crazy for it for a while, with one or two recipes, then get tired of it because I'm only making one or two recipes so I take a break, and then I remember how good it is and crave it all over again.

The kale at the market looked so good I just had to buy a bag, and then on Instagram I saw someones photo of a kale caesar salad, and yes.  YESSSSSSSSSSSS.

I didn't have any romaine lettuce at home, only butter, so it wasn't truly a caesar salad, I suppose, but it was delicious.  

Two things I did that made it the most amazing and I will do all the other times are:

First, after you wash and dry and cut your kale, put it in a bowl, and add a small splash of olive oil, and massage it in to the kale, then let it sit for an hour-ish.  This will tenderize the kale a bit so it's not so tough.

Second, make an insanely wonderful dressing like this one from Simply Recipes.  So good.

That same Saturday market, The Mister bought a baguette from one of the bakery stands for Sunday dinner.  We slacked when we got home and didn't wrap it well enough, and Sunday afternoon I realized it was getting stale.  I turned to Google for help and found such an amazing trick from Bon Appetit - basically drench your bread in water and bake it.  I was hesitant to try it - it seems too kooky - but what did I have to lose?  It worked perfectly, of course.  Brilliant.

Potluck Salad, and Merry Merry

My work hasn't been having regular potlucks for a few years now, 

we are down to one in December. 

We decided to do all appies for the potluck this year, 

so we divided our group into appies, desserts and drink. 

 I was in the appie category and I decided to do a salad. 

 I spent an hour perusing Pinterest and ended up choosing 

one of the first salads I looked at - 

Autumn Apple Salad with a Maple Vinaigrette.  

The recipe makes salad for one, so I made 4 times the amount 

of dressing (which was a lot, but that's ok because it's really good), 

and then just added the other ingredients to a container of

 baby romaine - crumbled bacon, dried cranberries, pecans, feta cheese and apples.  

The salad was AMAZING.  So delicious.  

I made more for The Mister and I on the weekend and he loved it too.  

 This is a super duper keeper.

Recipe: Autumn Apple Salad with a Maple Vinaigrette

Can you BELIEVE it's the end of 2016.  

This year completely sailed by.  

It was good and bad for me and my family, just like it probably was for you, 

just like it was for everyone.  

I'm holding tight to the good stuff and trying to let the other stuff flow away.  

Whether you celebrate at this time of year or not, Cheers.  

Be happy, be safe, be loving, be kind.

Sunday Dinner - Gado Gado Salad with bread

I found this recipe in an issue of Yoga Journal, part of an article on fermented foods.  I mentioned it to The Mister and he was on board to make it for Sunday Dinner.

It's similar to Niciose salad, or at least our version was, in the way that we lined up all the individual ingredients in bowls and on platters so everyone could mix their own salad.

The dressing was definitely my favorite part.  Made from kimchi, peanut butter, maple syrup, and some other stuff, it was amazingly delicious.  And the best part was, it wasn't spicy at all, so my mom and the kids could enjoy it too.

Recipe: Gado Gado Salad with Kimchi Nut Dressing

The bread was another good recipe, made from a bread baking book I bought this summer off the discount table at Coles.  It's by Paul Hollywood, one of the judges from The Great British Bake Off.  It was easy and very tasty.  I'm looking forward to baking more from the book this winter.

Snapshot - Taco Salad

The Mister and I have become quite taken with taco salads this summer.  Actually preferring them to tacos, if you can believe it.

This one below I would love to say was The Mister's as it's so huge, but it was mine.  And there really was lettuce and veggies under all that meat and guacamole, I swear.  

Watermelon, Feta and Mint

It was hot as heck around here for a few days back, and since we don't have air conditioning in our house, I was almost glad to go to work in the mornings - ALMOST.  

I made this salad as part of our dinner on one of those crazy hot nights when we were trying not to cook much, or even move around much. 
It's a simpler version of  this - just feta, watermelon and mint.  Yum.
The Boy was not a fan - he doesn't like feta - but he and The Girl devoured most of the watermelon while The Mister and I ate what scraps were left behind.  

This could possibly be our salad of the summer?

Wedge Salad

Last time I wrote about a wedge salad was probably the last time I had one.  

We watched some cooking show a while back that was at a restaurant that served them, 

and I knew it was time again.

Last time I went pretty basic, just tomato and chives with dressing.  

This time we added bacon and croutons - so delicious!

If you wanted to continue on the decadent path, crispy onions and avocado would be amazing.

I'm kicking myself for not thinking of that at the time.

Paleo casserole and Potluck

This is another dish I cooked from Quick and Easy Paleo Comfort Foods that I just loved.  It's a chicken and broccoli casserole, and the sauce is made from cauliflower and coconut milk and curry powder.  Delicious!  And thankfully the leftovers reheated well, because we had leftovers for a few days.  I like this book a lot.

I'm recovering from our latest potluck at work - what a feast!  My friend made a baked corn dish that reminded me of a souffle, and I really liked it.  There were lemon meringue pies in mason jars (so cute) and a decadent mint chocolate milkshake too. 

I was on salad duty and I wanted something different.  After searching Pinterest for 3 days I found a contender - a sweet potato salad with a cranberry chipolte dressing.  Yum!

I tested it out at home and loved everything about it, except that I found the dressing to be a bit too spicy for me, and I know a couple of the ladies attending the potlucks aren't fans of spice. (Yes, they suck.)  So I cut way back on the chipolte, and added a smidge more honey.  I took the salad unassembled to work, so I had 6 containers of various sizes to haul to work.  But who cares, it's potluck day!

I decided the night before to bring some extra cranberries, and I rough chopped them and folded them in the salad along with the pumpkin seeds (perfect touch in the salad), cilantro, green onions and dressing.

Everyone enjoyed it, and it was a nice healthy dish to stand up to the pie, milkshakes, and rice that was on the table.

Original recipe here