Chicken Salad with Chia or Poppy Seed Dressing

It is that time of year to enjoy nice Summer Salads.  I made this last week and my family loved it. It was easy to put together. It was fun to make a dressing  that was not high in calories. I used chia instead of poppy seeds. Chia seeds work as a nice thickener in dressing.

Ingredients:
2 C grilled chicken or cooked chopped small pieces
1/2 C chopped up carrots
1/4 to 1/2 purple onion chopped in small pieces
1 cucumber chopped
4 C Spring salad mix or other greens
 *sprinkle bacon pieces on top if desired
Dressing:
1 C plain yogurt
2 to 3 T honey or sweetener
2 to 2 1/2 T lemon juice
1 to 2 tsp chia seed (or poppy)

Directions: 
1. Toss all the ingredients in together except the bacon. 
2. Whisk together the ingredients for the dressing together. 
3. Just prior to serving. Pour on the dressing. and toss the bacon on top if desired.

Spring Veggie Slaw

This month's Recipe Redux theme is "The First Shoots of Spring," which refers not to the beautiful flowers popping up in your garden beds, but the lovely vegetables that come this time of year. We decided to make a veggie salad with a citrus dressing. Contrary to popular belief, salad dressings can be healthy!

Don't citrus and fresh snap peas just sound like spring? We thought so. The colors and freshness of these veggies are sure you get you feeling healthy and chipper.

Look at that lovely spring rainbow!

Ingredients

Dressing:
1/4 C orange
2 Tbsp rice milk
1 1/2 Tbsp honey
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp lime juice
1 T chia

Salad:
1/4 purple onion
1/2 zucchini
5 radishes
7-8 baby carrots
2 Roma tomatoes
1/2 English cucumber
3 green onions
7-8 snap peas
pumpkin or sunflower seeds (optional)
salt and pepper to taste


Directions

1. Mix dressing ingredients. Put in fridge while preparing the vegetables to let thicken. The Chia works as the thickening agent in the dressing. :)

2. Chop all salad ingredients into bit-sized pieces.

3. Mix salad and dressing together. Serve.

Apple & Almond & Feta Salad with Honey and Chia Dressing

I thrive on learning new things about nutrition and health. I was in the bookstore and grabbed a whole stack of things to read, while waiting for my daughter. I didn't get through all of the stack but, I had a great time. That is one of my favorite things to do. There are sooo many great things out there to learn I love it. I look forward to the next time I can do that.

This salad is fantastic. It one I recently found in my quest for learning and changed it around. It is on the list of one of my favorites. Britney came over and got to have some of this too. We both loved the combination of flavors. All the colors in it make it very appealing. It is sure to be a crowd pleaser. It is a great salad for the Summer.

It was fun to use chia in the dressing as oppose to poppy seeds. They are loaded with nutrition Just 2 T of chia is 6 grams of fiber. It is thought that chia could help in lowering triglyceride levels, and increase your HDL. Some studies have shown it could suppress your appetite, reduce inflammation and decrease blood pressure. They don't have much of a flavor so they can be added to almost anything. I put them in my smoothie every morning. I found that putting them in the salad dressing made a nice thickener. The seeds expand in liquid. You could use it in recipes that call for poppy seeds too. You don't have to grind the seeds to get the nutrtion out of them like you do with flax seeds.

Ingredients:
Dressing
1/2 C honey
2 T chia or poppy seeds
3/4 C grape seed oil or another kind of oil
1/2 cider vinegar
1/4 tsp pepper

1 head of Romain lettuce washed and torn in small pieces
1 C chopped almonds and 2 T honey cook in frying pan till is nice and thick. Let cool.
2 green apples cut in small bite size pieces
1/2 dried cranberries
1/2 red onion diced in small pieces
4 oz feta cheese crumbled

Instructions:

1. Combine ingredients for dressing in blender or shaker bottle and blend or shake. Refrigerate till ready to serve.

2. Toss the salad just before serving. I added the cheese last. I didn't want it to get over mixed. We poured on our own dressing, so the leftovers wouldn't get soggy.

I served this as the main dish with some cantaloupe a great meal. Yum!

Mango and Berry Green Salad with Mango Dressing

Hope you had a fun and Safe weekend. We had a wonderful weekend. We got away to southern Utah and enjoyed a fun family reunion with 65 of us. We enjoyed helping my Dad celebrate his 80Th birthday. I am so very thankful for the parents I have. They have blessed my life over and over again. Enjoying family time together is something I cherish. It is fun to see my own immediate family growing too. I loved the fireworks last night. It was a perfect night for it. I love America! This is a wonderful time of year!this time of year.

This was a salad that my daughter made for Father's Day! I just hadn't posted it yet. I got the idea for it, when we ate out for lunch. I thought it was something that could be made at home and it was. It was a nice colorful salad, and it tasted good as well. It is a nice salad for Summer.

Ingredients:

2 Heads of Romain lettuce washed and torn in pieces.
1 1/2 C blueberries
1 1/2 C Mangos cut in bite size pieces
1 C Marion berries or strawberries or both
candied nuts optional * would be wonderful!
1 bunch of green onion chopped * Optional

Dressing:

1 Mango chopped in pieces
1/2 C water
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 T rice vinegar
1 T olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp basil
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1 T honey

Directions:

1. Prepare lettuce. mangos and berries. Nuts and green onion if desired. Put lettuce in a bowl and toss in the mangos first and onion and nuts if using them. Add the berries last and toss them only once. The blueberries will run onto the mango if you toss to much. Serve the dressing separately.

2. Pour all the ingredients into the blender and pulse a couple minutes. Adjust taste to your preference. You can refrigerate before serving. d Serve the dressing separately. So people can add on the amount desired. It could taste great with out dressing too.

Caesar Salad with Homemade Dressing

I hope everyone enjoyed a nice 3 day weekend. It feels like Summer is right around the corner. Our schools are out this week. It is a happy time of year. I am soaking in the sunshine today. Everything always looks better with blue sky and sunshine. :)

It has been fun to make my own salad dressings. It is fun to have a lot more variety. Instead of pulling out the same bottles over and over again. It is healthier too. My family enjoys Caesar salad so, I made it over the weekend. I found a recipe from weight watchers and did a few changes. One thing I have found works best, is to let people pour on their own dressing. If there is left over salad, it will stay fresher longer without the dressing on it.

Ingredients:

4 cloves of minced garlic
1 T mustard (spicy brown) or Dijon
1 T vinegar
2 T mayonnaise (with olive oil)
1/2 C olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper (freshly ground would be wonderful)
1 tsp lemon juice

2 to 3 Romain stalks broken into small pieces
5 to 6 cut up green onions chopped small pieces
croutons *optional
Parmesan cheese to sprinkle on top (I put it on the table)

Directions:

1. Pour all the ingredients for the dressing in the blender. Blend 2 to 3 min. It would probably enhance the flavor if you chilled it for 30 min. I served it immediately, either way works.

2. Prepare the lettuce and onions. Serve and let people pour on their own dressing. Top it with some Parmesan cheese.

Strawberry Macadamia Spinach Salad

It is a regular at our house to have spinach salad with our Sunday dinner. I like to add some changes, and have some variation. Yesterday I was having a b-day dinner for my oldest son, and this is the salad I served. It was yummy with barbecued steak. It was so wonderful to use the barbecue and get the wonderful flavor that it adds to the meat. I love this time of year! =) I feel spring in the air. My trees have blossoms on them. Is Spring happening at your house too? I hope so!

Ingredients:
3 c spinach
1 bunch of green onions chopped up in small pieces
1/2 C to 1 C sliced strawberries
1 C macadamia nuts chopped up
3 T sweetener of your choice (I used sucrant)

Dressing:

1/2 C strawberries sliced
1/4 C olive oil
1/8 C vinegar
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 T sweetener

Directions:
1. In a small frying pan on the stove heat up sugar and nuts. Cook until the sugar melts. (The sucrant did not melt as well as other sugars. It thickened, and I sprinkled the thickened sugar along with the nuts on the salad). Cool before adding to the salad.

2. Toss the spinach in with the green onions. Lightly toss in the strawberries. Then sprinkle the nut mixture on top.

3. Pour all the ingredients for the dressing into the blender and blend for 2 min. Yum!

4. I decided I liked everyone adding their dressing on their own. Keeps the salad more fresh looking.

* Sorry my good camera is broken. So the pictures haven't been as good lately. Hopefully I can get the other camera fixed soon.

Strawberry Vinaigrette W/ Candied Nuts

I have been having fun making my own dressing for salads. I like the idea of saving money and also of having something healthy to put on my salad. Like anything when you are experimenting, some work better than others. The ones as of late have worked out well. Last night I tried out this one and it was a success. It is wonderful to put strawberries in the salad too. Not the best season for that, but it will be soon. :) So have fun coming up with your own creative dressings. The cool thing is they are easy to make too. The nice thing is you make a small amount you could even 1/2 this recipe. The other nice thing is you don't have bottles of dressing sitting in your fridge for a long time, that I always wondered if they were still good.

Ingredients:

1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 T xagave or honey etc...
2 T apple cider vinegar
6 to 7 frozen strawberries (You could use jam and cut down on the sugar)
3/4 C olive oil
(I have added herbs too)

Directions:

1. Pour all the ingredients in the blender and let it whirl. I love how the blender puts some air in it and makes it really creamy. Give it a tasted and see if you want to add anything. The dressing is ready to serve.

* The other thing my family likes is to put candied nuts on the salad. You can do this by, chopping up 1 C of nuts, in a blender or food processor. I usually do almonds, other ones would work too. Then pour the nuts into a small frying pan, on the stove. Pour in 2 T of sugar, honey, or agave etc.. Then turn the heat to med. If you are using sugar it will melt. You need to keep and eye on it. Keep stirring it, till the mixture starts to thicken. Let it cook for another couple minutes. Then take off the stove, and let cool before putting on the salad. Yummy!

*If the dressing starts to separate after sitting in the fridge, you can just pour it in the blender and blend it again. The one I made last night is still a good consistency. It has not separated. Have fun with it.