Day Forty-five--Mediterranean Salad

Hello all. I hope everyone survived the holiday weekend. I think I'm still trying to recover from Hershey Park on Friday. I've had a headache since Friday night. Of course, I didn't help my cause with the several bottles of beer on Sunday night. Magic Hat's summer brew is the best!

Yesterday was Monday and we did a meatless Monday. I keep getting updates from Food, Inc on my facebook page about Meatless Monday and I thought, "What the hell?" We do a lot of meatless dinners. Sometime I'll go back and figure the percentage of vegetarian. We were vegan for a year, so we have a pretty good arsenal of vegetarian meals to use. This salad was from the Jamie Oliver Food Revolution book. It was super duper easy!

Mediterranean Salad with fresh bread

I like how Jamie just chops everything on a big board and dresses it on the board. It makes the salad into little bite size pieces. Laurie (hi mom) does this too. It makes the salad easier to eat. I made a fresh loaf of bread to have with the salad. I don't think you really need a recipe for this salad, but I followed it mostly. It's romaine lettuce, an onion, a tomato, and some kalamata olives. The recipe called for basil too, but our basil plant needs to renew itself a bit so I didn't pull any leaves off of it. It's then dressed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. The bread was super delicious and we ended up making salad sandwiches. Connor came up with this one. It was a nice light dinner after a long weekend of indulging.

That is all I have for now. We are going to try to bust through the last of our school projects today and then I have to make pasta for tonight. It's going to be a busy day. Until later, happy cooking!

Day Forty-one--Pasta House Salad

Whew, it was hot yesterday and I'm glad that I planned accordingly. No stoves or ovens were used. I did finally have to run to the store to get some food and that was the extent of me dealing with the heat.

Dinner was a salad. This salad has been around for a while and I had to go do some digging around to find the recipe.

Pasta House Salad

I remember this salad from my childhood. My mom's friend had sent it to her and my mom made it a lot. I had the recipe written down at some point, but with so many moves it has gotten misplaced. I was going to call my mom to get the recipe again but it's not easy getting in touch with her anymore so I resorted to the good 'ol internet. Seriously, how did we survive before the world wide web?! I was able to find the recipe and figure out where this recipe came from. The Pasta House is a series of restaurants in the St. Louis area. This makes sense to me because that is where our friend lives.

The salad itself is crazy easy to make. It's a mixture of romaine and iceburg lettuce. I like to chop it up into small pieces. Then there are a couple of jars of artichokes (that I chopped up a little), some pimentos and a sliced red onion. It seems I can't find jars of pimentos anymore. I had to get a jar of roasted red peppers and slice them up. Tim made the dressing for me while I was doing all the chopping. The dressing is just olive oil, red wine vinegar, and some salt and pepper. You pour the dressing over the salad and then grate fresh Parmesan cheese over the top.

Tim and I loved the salad. The kids, not so much. Actually, the kids hated it. I have warned them though that they better get used to salads or they are going to be really hungry. I'm kind of looking forward to tonight's salad too. It should be interesting. I just hope the kids like it. Until tonight(or tomorrow morning), happy cooking!

Day Nine--Warm Lentil Salad

This dinner is a repeat for us. I made it a couple of weeks ago and we loved it so it has been put in our rotation. Yes, it's another Jamie Oliver recipe off of my 20 min meals app. It says it makes 4 servings, but we all had a big plate of it (Aidan had a little bit less) and we still have a serving for tomorrow's lunch which Connor has already claimed as his. It's pretty funny around here in the morning when Tim is making his lunches. There is usually a battle between him and Connor over who gets the left overs. Luckily we had enough leftovers from last night for three of us to have it for lunch today. So, here is tonight's dinner:

Warm Lentil Salad

This is really easy to do. One thing I like about the app is that it is step by step and while one thing is working on the stove, it tells you what to do to prep for the next step. I first sauteed a lot of garlic and thyme together. Then I added 2 cans of organic lentils and warmed them up. I then put a splash of red wine vinegar in it. While that is warming up I made the balsamic dressing. Then I had to cut up some bacon. I used less than the recipe called for. Once the bacon was done cooking, you roast up some torn up pieces of fresh ciabatta bread to make crispy croutons. Then you put everything on top of a bowl of lettuce. Now, the first time I made this I wasn't sure I would like warm lettuce. It was fabulous. It was so delicious. Aidan even ate it. He didn't really eat it last time. This time he tried it again and said that he actually liked it. We didn't push him too much on him. I gave him a very little bit and told him he just had to eat what was on his plate and he did. When he said he liked it I asked him if he wanted more and he gave me a very emphatic NO. I didn't push it. I was very happy with him eating what he did.

It's interesting. We are starting to notice a couple of things. One, it doesn't seem like we are eating as much as we used to. It takes less food to fill us up and we aren't snacking as much as we used to. I'm wondering if it is because we are actually getting nutrients in our food and our bodies are feeling fuller sooner. Another thing I've noticed is that now that we don't have any processed food or snacks in the house at all, the kids are content to eat fruit if they ask for a snack. Aidan has realized that this is how we are eating and now he's more willing to try new things. I don't have to rave about Connor actually eating because he has always been an adventurous eater. He was eating tofu and couscous when he was a year old. He loves spicy foods. He pretty much loves everything. He doesn't like chicken or turkey, but only because they don't have enough flavor. I love the fact he's willing to try new things. He's being a very good example for Aidan and now Aidan is doing much better.