A Week of Salad - Thursday

I am writing this post at 5:30 in the morning because I couldn't sleep which is quite odd since I am completely exhausted! One more night of VBS to go and one more salad to make this afternoon. Actually I am kind of having fun with my week of salad and it might continue for a couple more days!

Yesterday I had to work at one of my cleaning jobs so when I got home I only had about 15 minutes to get lunch fixed before Miles came home. I should have had more time, but I locked myself out of the house where I was cleaning, and I had to go to the neighbor's house to use the phone to call poor Traci. She had to have her morning interrupted to come back and let me in. She told me not to go out or I would lock myself out before she left. I told her I usually never do, which really isn't true after I think about it, because I clean the windows on her front door every week and step out to do so. It didn't even dawn on me until I had cleaned all four windows and went to turn the knob. Someone make me a dunce cap or wait patiently for my VBS brain to go away and my real brain to return!

Back to salad..... When I am in a hurry we have a favorite salad that usually consists of cucumbers, tomatoes, feta, chicken sausage, and my homemade mustard vinaigrette or a light Ceasar that we like. But yesterday I was in the mood for something a bit more summery.

The lettuce was the rest of the red leaf and a 50/50 mix of organic baby spinach and a spring mix. The spinach was the perfect choice for this salad. I added strawberries this time and left out the tomatoes. I also added walnuts for some crunch and decided that I would rather have more of a balsamic dressing then the mustard dressing. It goes better with the strawberry thing. I had already sliced up the chicken sausage and cooked it in a small pan quick in case you are wondering.

I really have a thing for fruit on my salad. It looks pretty and it also adds a unique flavor to just about any salad combination.

When I sat down to eat this Faith said, "Strawberries on a salad? Where's the cucumbers?" Ooops! I forgot the cucumbers. I am blaming that on VBS brain as well. I got up and chopped a few slices quick otherwise my salad wouldn't have had much vegetable content. I love cucumbers!

If you want to make it easy on yourself there are several balsamic dressings you can buy ready made that have very little calories. I like Newman's Own in particular but it is pretty easy to whip one up as well. I like to make a homemade Greek dressing that has the same ingredient list but uses white wine vinegar so I just subbed in this balsamic from Whole Foods which is quite good by the way! I left it out of the picture but you do need olive oil for this dressing as well. I used my handy dressing mixer again (that is what we had leftover in the container) and of course I didn't measure. I know I drive some of you crazy. Sorry.

I also used these four ingredients- onion powder, garlic powder, basil, and oregano. It is better to use fresh garlic, but I was in a hurry. If I had fresh oregano or basil I would use that too but this works fine also. I should probably just learn to measure for all of you who need me to be precise but here is my best guess on the measurements.

2-3oz. of olive oil

2 oz. aged balsamic vinegar

1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

1 tsp. onion powder

1 tsp. basil

1 tsp. oregano

1 tsp. garlic powder or 1-2 garlic cloves minced

Give it a stir or whisk and taste. Add what you feel is lacking. If the mustard or vinegar taste is too strong then add more olive oil. I suppose the reason I never measure much when making dressing is that I am just looking for a good flavor. You can't mess it up too much so give yourself a little freedom to just dump!

It was a very refreshing salad and I am already thinking about my salad for today!

Now for the fun part..........last night's photos!

                                                                                    

We have the MOST AWESOME crew leaders! The kids really get to know their leader and get attached to them and these leaders make the week so fun for them!

      

     Learning about what Jesus did on the cross for us.

       

   Laying our "sins" on the cross and asking Jesus to forgive us for them.

        

           This was a beautiful picture and a great visual for the kids.

         

This is my daughter and her fun personality caught on camera. She absolutely adores going to VBS every night. She will be sad when it ends tonight.

         

And some running and screaming just because that is what kids do best. I bet these children have been sleeping very well every night.

I think I might go back to sleep for a bit now. I will be up late tonight getting everything put away at the church. I am hoping I can leave there before 11pm.

Want to come help me anyone?

            





8 Layer Mediterranean Dip

You will have to forgive me for the lack of posts. Traveling so close to Christmas and then trying to be ready for the day with all the meals planned, grocery shopping done, presents wrapped, house cleaned (my own and my cleaning jobs), table set, cookies baked, etc.... there is no time left for blogging. I did take pictures however of some of the things I did make so I can now share them with you.

Since I had made such a big meal for Christmas Dinner I planned to make some snack type foods to eat that evening and into the next day so I wouldn't have to cook again. Besides there are too many leftovers! I stumbled across this recipe on the Whole Foods recipe page for this dip and thought it was totally up my alley! So I made it on Saturday evening and we ate it Sunday evening. I thought I would share it today because it would make a great appetizer to try for New Year's Eve if you have something planned.

Miles' exact words when he came up the stairs after having eaten some, "That dip, me likey! You can do that again!" (I know he needs a little help in the grammar department but I will take the compliment.)

I started by spreading a layer of hummus in the bottom of a 9 x 7 inch dish. I used Sabra this time instead of homemade to save a little time. Then I topped that layer with some chopped spinach and then some roasted red pepper.

I know I made each of my layers a little more generous then the recipe called for because I was expecting to really like this and my dish was a different size then what they recommended. You can see the beautiful colorful layers stacking up here!

If you have an angled spatula like this one it works very well to spread things out and to pack the layers down. You should also note that you really need to drain the wet ingredients well so that the dip doesn't get too watery. (red pepper, artichokes, olives)

Next was the artichokes. I should have taken a picture of the can for you. I drained them and roughly chopped them. I should have also patted them with a paper towel just to absorb a little more moisture. Next time!

My favorite......Greek yogurt. I think a thicker brand like Athenos works best for something like this.

Top the yogurt with some roughly chopped Greek olives. I know Greek olives are an acquired taste so if you don't care for them use regular black olives but they do add some great color so don't skip them all together!

I guess I skipped the picture of the green onion. Finish it off with the green onion and a layer of feta cheese. I did refrigerate it overnight but if you give it about an hour it would set up nicely I think.

Doesn't that look delicious????

I served it with two kinds of multi-grain pita chips. I like the Kangaroo brand best not only for their garden herb flavor but also because they do not come all broken up like a lot of pita chips do. They are nice firm squares. Regular pita would have been great to eat with this as well.

We loved this dip so much that we ate it for dinner last night as well and had some more with our lunch today. It is about gone but I am not even the least bit sick of it! I might be making some more for this weekend myself!

You can click here Whole Foods Recipe for the original recipe I found. I didn't change any ingredients but just made bigger portions for each layer. Don't worry. You can't really mess this up!

Stay tuned.........I also made some slightly cleaned up molasses cookies that turned out quite incredible if I do say so myself. They would also be a welcome addition to any New Year's Eve party you might be attending.

Dinner is in the crock pot and Cars 2 is on the agenda for tonight's Christmas Break Movie Marathon! Enjoy your evening!

Sun-Dried Tomato and Feta Chicken Roll Ups

Well I am home from a very fabulous weekend with my girlfriends scrapbooking! We go on this trip annually and it is where we get the bulk of our scrapbooking done for the year. I completed 50 pages! Together we finished 218 pages and we are pretty proud of ourselves. We also eat way too much on this trip. They make it easy for us by providing such delicious meals and snacks. The problem is we are too sedentary to really need that much food and there is a small issue with a lack of vegetables for me. (I forgot my V8 this year.) Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining in the least. I loved the Saturday morning breakfast of oatmeal and yogurt with all kinds of fruit toppings and brunch yesterday was a delicious egg bake. We also had sandwiches on homemade bread, taco salad, and chicken cordon blue. The highlight of the trip comes Saturday afternoon when they do the cheesecake parade. That is right, a parade for cheesecake!

We all stand up and clap to some very fun music as he parades his cheesecakes around. Then they go cut them up and we go enjoy! I picked pumpkin and a slice of green grape cheesecake. They are small slices so no worries. There are SO many different kinds it is hard to choose.

Here we are Friday night just getting started really!

Needless to say after a weekend of indulging and a lot of sitting I came home feeling pretty stuffed! Since Miles was home with the kids by himself all weekend he didn't do too much cooking either. It is possible that no one ate a single vegetable all weekend long. So we declared today and probably tomorrow to be a phase one kind of day. By that we basically mean no carbs, no sugar, and no fruit. We will then eat fairly strict the rest of this week with limited carbs and fruit but still no sugar. That's the problem with indulging too much! You can do it for a couple days but then you have to be strict for several days to even things out.

So tonight I made a little invention. Even though we will be eating strict I still want my food to taste great and feel like it is something special. I made a sun-dried tomato paste tonight that I rolled up inside some chicken breasts. Miles' words, "Oh my gosh! Did you write this one down?" I think we have a winner folks!

First place some sun-dried tomatoes in a bowl of water to soak. I used about 1/2 cup of julienned tomatoes. Next you need to pound your chicken breasts flat with a rolling pin or mallet and set them aside. The recipe for the filling will do about 4 chicken breasts. You could probably sneak out a fifth if you needed too.

Give the tomatoes at least 10 minutes to soak and then grind them up with a little of the water. To this I added 1/4 cup of feta cheese, 2 tsp. of chopped basil (jarred), one tablespoon each of balsamic and olive oil, and 3 garlic cloves minced.

It was having a hard time getting chopped and mixed well so I took it all out and microwaved it for 30 seconds then gave it a few more whirls in the food processor. It came together nicely after that. I also added a bit more feta at this point.

Spread it generously over your flattened chicken breast.

Then roll up the chicken starting with the most narrow end and place some toothpicks in to hold it in place. Put in a pan seam side down and cover with aluminum foil. They go into a 400 degree oven and cook for 30 minutes. I decided after eating them that a couple minutes less would have been perfect! They weren't really dry but they weren't super moist. So just watch them closely.

While my chicken was cooking I did my favorite trick with green beans. I had already steamed them in the microwave for 5 minutes. Then I put them in a pan with some olive oil, a little chopped red onion, red wine vinegar (be generous), and sliced almonds. Saute them for about 5-7 minutes.

I sliced up the chicken and served them up with the green beans and some salad. Remember we are eating strict so we needed to have 2 vegetable servings tonight. I don't mind though. I was vegetable deprived. I ate salad for lunch too. It felt good to be back to my normal diet. My body is really thankful too! I also think that these would be great just smothered in the sauce if you don't want to take the time to roll the chicken.

Even though I have to eat strict the next few days it is worth it and this is why. My little girl poured over her completed pages for quite some time last night. Her brother was equally thankful and excited to see his pages too. Portion of goodness, you bet!

I think now I will have some hot tea and catch up with the DVR. It has been a while and we miss each other!

Recipe:

4 chicken breasts pounded flat

1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes soaked in water

1/3 cup feta

2 Tbsp. chopped basil (I used jarred but fresh is good too)

1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar

1 Tbsp. olive oil

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

Directions:

When tomatoes are soft, drain the liquid reserving 1/4 cup, and place in a food processor. Chop up finely with the liquid. In a small bowl place the rest of the ingredients listed (except the chicken) and add the tomatoes. Microwave for 30 seconds and put all ingredients back into the food processor. Spin until mixed well.

Spread a generous amount over each chicken breast. Roll up starting with the narrow end and insert toothpicks. Place seam side down in baking dish and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 28-30 minutes at 400 degrees. Slice and serve immediately.