I just got home from a trip to Atlanta, with one sister and
my mom and I visiting my other sister (more on that later), and I’m leaving
tomorrow for two Marillion concerts in Hollywood (they haven’t toured the US in
15 years, and I think we got to see them only once when we lived in Wales), so
I don’t have time for a proper journal entry.
But!
I’ve lost about 10 lbs and about 4% body fat in the last
couple of months, and long story short, several people have asked me about
salads and wraps. I love me some salad, boy howdy. Real Salad, not some
namby-pamby wilted iceberg lettuce excuse for a salad. Salad with lots of
interesting textures and explosions of taste and a tempting variety of colors.
Crunchy veggies, a smattering of cheese, healthy fat in the form of avocado,
filling protein.
(The word salad
now officially is looking weird to me.)
So here you have them.
Salad #1
Good for a small dinner salad or a big entrée salad, the
latter depending on how much protein you need.
- mixed greens of choice
- spinach
- fresh herbs if you’ve got them (I love basil)
- broccoli slaw
- tomatoes – I love little grape tomatoes, and I cut them in half so it’s easier to stab ‘em with my fork
- yellow pepper (or if you like green or red or orange, go for it)
- Persian (Trader Joe’s has them) or English cucumber (why do regular cucumbers have no taste?)
- thinly sliced red onion
- half an avocado
- garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
- bleu cheese (I like TJ’s crumbled Salem Bleu)
- balsamic vinaigrette (see below)
Salad #2
Good for a big entrée salad because it has more protein. I
have this for lunch a lot.
- same veggies as above
- delete bleu cheese
- add feta cheese
- add Kalamata/Greek olives if you so desire
- add single-serving packet of tuna
- delete vinaigrette
- add a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil
- add red wine vinegar to taste
Balsamic Vinaigrette à
la Dayle
- 1 part extra-virgin olive oil to 2 parts balsamic vinegar – I usually do ½ cup oil and 1 cup vinegar, because that fits nicely in the bottle I use. Do what works best for you.
- some sort of mixed seasoning of your choice. I like Trader Joe’s Italian seasoning mix because it has no added salt and is tasty.
- dried mustard
- finely chopped garlic if you want (I don’t because it’s hard to clean out of the bottle)
- pour oil and vinegar into a measuring cup
- sprinkle seasoning until it covers the surface of the liquid
- sprinkle mustard to taste
- whisk like a mad whisking person
- decant into a nice bottle for serving
Wrap #1, aka Greek
Wrap
- Trader Joe’s organic whole wheat olive oil wrap
- hummus (I love Trader Joe’s Mediterranean)
- spinach
- fresh basil if you’ve got it
- thinly sliced red onion
- sliced grape tomatoes
- thinly sliced Persian cucumbers
- Kalamata/Greek olives, roughly chopped
- crumbled feta
- sprinkle of red wine vinegar if you remember (I usually forget, dammit)
- schmear wrap with two tbsp hummus
- add veggies and feta
- I like to add the spinach last and pile on as much as I can
- wrap the wrap, baybee
- eat up
Wrap #2, aka Sandwich
in a Wrap
- Trader Joe’s organic whole wheat olive oil wrap
- stoneground mustard
- good thin-sliced deli turkey that isn’t full of preservatives and additives and crap
- veggies of your choice (spinach unless you can’t keep it refrigerated, cucumbers, tomatoes, onion, etc.)
- half an avocado
