salad

Roasted Shrimp and Orzo Salad

May 21, 2014 by Erica

Roasted Shrimp and Orzo Salad

This shrimp and orzo salad was just catapulted to the top of my all-time favorites.

Why, you ask? Well, cause my mom made it for me, of course! And I guess the huge chunks of feta don’t hurt, either.

This was lunch one day during my bridal shower a few weekends ago. My mom made a huge batch (like quadruple the recipe!) to feed 11 hungry women. Well, I don’t know if everyone was hungry… but I sure was, and I think I ate 4 servings. Or maybe that was the souffle the next morning that I ate 4 servings of? Oh wait, that too. There was a loooot of good food. But I certainly wasn’t the only one going back for “just one more bite” of this salad.

Now, I know I don’t post a lot of seafood on this blog, but the truth is that I eat a fair amount of it. It’s usually at restaurants, because let’s face it, I love sushi! Also, fish is often the healthiest thing on a restaurant menu. But I forgot how absolutely WORTH IT it is to cook seafood at home from time to time. This pasta salad is a prime example.

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Sun Dried Tomato and Gorgonzola Salad

May 19, 2014 by Erica

Sun Dried Tomato and Gorgonzola Salad

I’m baaaack!

Back from Nashville, that is. I was there most of last week for work, and not gonna lie, I’m kinda still recovering.

Initially I was overwhelmed at the prospect of spending last Monday and Tuesday in client meetings in Salt Lake, then flying to Nashville for a conference the rest of the week. Especially after spending the previous weekend in Massachusetts! But actually, despite all the cross-country travel, the whole week was a total blast. I mean, when work consists of a few meetings in between buying cowboy boots and sitting in the second row at the Lady A concert, it’s hard not to have a good time.

Sun Dried Tomato and Gorgonzola Salad

And now, back to the real world… sigh. And back to some jeans that are a liiiiittle tighter than before All The Southern Food happened to my body.

I always (usually) have good healthy eating intentions when it comes to traveling. On this trip, I packed dinner and a snack for the plane, I refused the first round of Biscoff cookies, and I drank a huge bottle of water despite the drink vouchers in my purse.

And then.

Then I got to Nashville, where I’m pretty sure that even the “skinny eggwhite omelet” I ordered for breakfast the first morning was cooked in a vat of bacon grease. The same day, I went to a barbecue joint with my 8 male co-workers and ate a meal of macaroni and cheese, cornbread, and pickles (I think that was the “vegetable plate”). Oh and then there were the numerous free drinks that kept magically appearing. Let’s just say that on the flight back, the Biscoff cookies seemed like a health food.

Will I be recreating any Southern specialties for you? Um… not at the moment.

Sun Dried Tomato and Gorgonzola Salad

But believe it or not, this salad isn’t even my Monday attempt to make up for all of that. Nope, it’s just my recreation of the delicious Whole Foods salad I enjoyed on the flight to Nashville… again, before All The Southern Food.

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My Favorite Arugula Salad with Honey-Lemon Dressing

April 25, 2014 by Erica

My Favorite Arugula Salad with Honey-Lemon Dressing
A few weeks ago my co-worker brought me some home-grown lemons. I asked you on Facebook what I should do with them. And I’m going to go ahead and give myself the boring award right now, because instead of all the fabulous things you suggested, I made salad.

In my defense:

1. It’s my favorite salad. And now it can be yours, too.

2. I was all ready to bake a lemon cake, and maybe sometime I still will, but then I made cookies. Like, a lot of cookies. And the cake option was crossed off the list.

3. Can I just tell you that you haven’t truly lived until you’ve had lemon salad dressing made with fresh-picked lemons? No, maybe I can’t tell you that; it sounds way too pretentious.

My Favorite Arugula Salad with Honey-Lemon Dressing
Let’s just get to the salad, shall we?

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Warm Curry Salad

April 11, 2014 by Erica

Warm Curry Salad

Happy Friday!

I am breathing a sigh of relief that this week is over. It was a busy one, that’s for sure. Not that that’s unexpected, but just… phew. Friday. I would imagine you feel the same?

Usually my Friday posts tend to be fewer meals and more desserts, breakfasts, snacks, and the like. Let’s face it – I am tired by the end of the week, and that is the kind of recipe that gets me excited to tie on my apron and get in the kitchen over the weekend. Healthy meals? Meh. I get enough of those Monday to Thursday. BUT today we are bucking the trend with this warm curry salad. Mostly because I got over-excited about polenta earlier in the week and just couldn’t save that post until Friday. But also because I think it’s worth throwing together a pot of this over the weekend, if not because you’re super excited about it at the time, then because you most certainly will be excited about having healthy leftovers in your lunchbox come Monday or Tuesday.

But let’s back up. Warm curry salad? What the H-E-double-hockey-sticks is a warm curry salad?

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Vegan Caesar Panzanella

March 10, 2014 by Erica

Vegan Caesar Panzanella

I think we should celebrate springtime today.

To my friends in the Northeast still caught in the polar vortex, I apologize. Here in Utah, the birds are chirping, the crocuses are blooming, and I’m starting to feel like I should be spending time outside instead of huddled in front of the space heater wearing a robe and a hat.

Daylight savings seems to mark the beginning of spring here. It’s pretty lovely, even though I dread “springing forward” past an hour of sleep. I can hardly believe the sun doesn’t set until 7:30 tonight! That’s a guarantee that I won’t be leaving work in the dark. The mornings are a different story… back to running with my uber-dorky headlight on. But even that won’t last for long.

I hope it’s nice and warm and sunny where you are, too. Otherwise you might be getting mad. Because I thought we could celebrate the milder weather with a fresh springtime salad today.

Vegan Caesar Panzanella

I recently made a vegan Caesar dressing for the first time, and well, it pretty much blew Nate and me away. It tastes different from non-vegan Caesar, but in the same way that any homemade dressing will taste different from store-bought. I honestly don’t think you’d know it was vegan (unless you eat a lot of tahini, in which case you might be able to pick out the tahini flavor). I was afraid to tell Nate (tahini hater numero uno) what it’s made of when he asked, but he wasn’t scared off, which is really saying something. He requests it regularly, and I’ve been finding an excuse to eat it on top of everything, from salad to pasta to roasted veggies. I have to say that this panzanella is probably this dressing’s highest and best use, though.

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