Cucumber Tomato Salad

My garden is still overflowing with cucumbers.  We can't eat them, pickle them, or give them away fast enough.  Even if we ate cucumbers 3 meals a day, we would still have too many.  And yes, this is only from one plant!  Those things grow like weeds! 

When I was finishing up dinner the other night, I realized that I had forgotten to make a veggie to go with the meal.  I needed something fast so I decided to make a quick cucumber tomato salad.  It's so refreshing and tasty, it makes you forget you are actually eating something healthy!  

I like to start by washing and slicing up my cucumbers and tomatoes and putting them in a serving bowl.  I grind some fresh salt and pepper over the top.  Then I will drizzle over some oil and vinegar over the top.  In 5 minutes tops, I have a yummy vegetable to serve with my meal or as a stand alone snack.   

I have a slight addiction to gourmet spices, seasoning blends, olive oils, and vinegars.  I love that you can make the same basic dish and make it different every time based on a slight variation each time.   So even though I make this salad frequently, I always try to change it up to keep it from getting boring.  Sometimes I'll use rice vinegar and sesame oil.  Other times, I'll use olive oil and apple cider vinegar and toss in some fresh basil.  I've even added some sliced sweet red onions, mozzarella cheese, and olives to the mix.   

This time I used olive oil and a 20 year old aged pomegranate balsamic vinegar.  In place of salt, I used some Garlic Gold Sea Salt Nuggets.  Have you tried Garlic Gold before?  If you haven't you really should.  (No, they aren't paying me to say this...I just love this stuff).  I picked up some with a Groupon-like deal a while ago and I'm obsessed.  Little crunchy nuggets of garlic and sea salt.  This is not the garlic salt my mom used when I was little.  This stuff is awesome.  

I think that this was probably my favorite combination that I have put together so far.  Maybe we were really hungry, or it was really that good, but I was really disappointed when the bowl was empty.  

Cucumber Tomato Salad

1 cucumber

1 large tomato

1-2 tbl olive oil

1-2 tbl vinegar

salt and pepper

Wash cucumber, peel and seed if desired.  Slice.  Wash tomato and slice.  Place tomato and cucumber slices into a serving bowl.  Drizzle with oil and vinegar.  Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.   

This post was shared on Whole Food Fridays Week #11 and Creative Thursday Link Party #26

Taco Salad with Avocado Dressing

My friend Lauren came over for dinner after she got back from a short vacation.  She said she was needing to detox from all the fun and suggested we make a taco salad.  

My grandma and my mom make this super yummy taco salad that has a homemade avocado dressing  mixed in the salad.  I'm sure I loved the salad mostly because it had crushed up Fritos in the salad, but I did remember that the dressing was really yummy.  

I tracked down the recipe from my aunt and was so disappointed to find out that it had sour cream in it. Dairy does NOT do my body good anymore, so I decided to try to find another avocado dressing recipe.  None of the ones I found were even close to my grandma's recipe, so I ended up combing all the best parts of the dozens of recipes I read into my own, allergen-friendly, avocado dressing.  

I made the dressing in a mixing bowl with an immersion blender, but you could definitely make this in a blender, a magic bullet, or even a small food processor.  

Avocado Green Chili Dressing

1 Avocado, skin and pit removed

Juice of 1 Lime

3 tbl water

3 tbl olive oil

1 garlic clove (I used my fermented garlic)

Small handful of Cilantro (leaves...stems too if you're lazy)

1/2 of a 4oz can of diced green chilies

Salt and pepper to taste

1/4 tsp chili powder (opt)

Add all ingredients to a blender and process until smooth.  Cover and chill for about 30 minutes while you are preparing your salad.  

When we made our taco salads, we put in everything that we could find that would go in a taco salad.  Lettuce, tomatoes, taco meat, onions, olives, crushed up tortilla chips, roasted corn kernels, salsa, etc.  I also like to add black beans or kidney beans, but didn't have any at the time. Once again, this is one of those super flexible meals that will adapt to whatever you have on hand.  

This post was shared on Whole Food Fridays Week #11 and Creative Thursday Link Party #26

Thai Lemon Shrimp

I have found a new love of coconut milk recipes, but not yet a love of curry, so I get very excited when I find a non-curry coconut milk recipe!

I found this amazing recipe and modified it to what I had on hand.  I'm sorry there's no picture to go with it.  We inhaled this so quickly and I didn't think you all wanted an after the fact picture of lonely shrimp nubs.   

Thai Lemon Shrimp

1 pound shrimp, shelled and deveined
1 lemon and 1 lime, juice and zest
1 teaspoon sriracha
1 small jalapeño whole
1 tablespoon fish sauce
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon honey
1/4 cup light coconut milk
1/4 cup cilantro leaves
1 tsp oil

Mix all but shrimp in blender or food processor. Marinate shrimp in sauce for about 30 minutes in the fridge.

Heat a pan over medium high heat and spray with your misto or add a teaspoon of your favorite higher heat oil (I prefer coconut oil).

Discard the marinade and add the shrimp to the skillet and cook until shrimp are done, about 2-3 minutes.  Do not overcook or your shrimp will be rubbery. 

Remove from heat and serve immediately.

Happy Anniversary!!!!

 

9 years ago today. 

Feels like yesterday and a million years ago all at once. 

My only regret is that we didn't meet sooner because a lifetime 10 lifetimes eternity isn't enough time to love you. 

Grandma's Steak Marinade

I feel so lucky that I grew up with a mom and a Grandma that are very good cooks.  Aside from the red label soup casseroles, almost everything I grew up eating was from scratch, which I now realize is very rare.  When my friends were eating their Lunchables and Twinkies and McDonalds every day, we were eating sandwiches on homemade bread and desserts of homemade oatmeal cookies. 

Little did I realize that my mom was saving us from all the chemicals and preservatives that were starting to emerge into the American Diet during my childhood. Whether she did it because she wanted to feed us right, or we were simply to poor to buy all the prepared and fast foods, or a combination of both, I am really grateful that we got started out on right foot.  I didn't have to learn how to like healthy food as an adult, because I wasn't raised on a strict diet of Hot Pockets, Stouffer's Lasagna, and Hamburger Helper.

As a full-time commuting employee and a wife, I really struggle to find a balance between cooking healthy meals or relying on prepared foods and take out.  Many of the convenience foods that we find today are easily made at home in less than a few minutes.

We had the privilege of being able to buy a locally raised grass fed and finished cow at the beginning of this year.  It has really helped our food budget, as well as help us have a freezer full of healthy beef at a fraction of the grocery store price. 

I love to take a cheaper cut of steak and marinate it for a day or two and grill it to a nice medium rare.  Since I've had to be so careful about what I eat now, I was appalled at the ingredients in most steak marinades that we had been blindly buying.  They were full of HFCS, MSG, and all sorts of other ingredients that I cannot pronounce.  How can I expect to benefit from the health values of a grass fed steak when I'm slathering it with the very ingredients that I know are harming my body???

Then I remembered the steak marinade that I carefully copied from my mom's handwritten cookbook from my Grandma.  A simple steak marinade. No yucky ingredients, no MSG, no HFCS.

Don't you just love stained cookbook pages???

Because of my restrictions, I've made a slight change to grandma's recipe and I now use coconut amionos in place of the soy sauce.  I always let my steaks marinate 24-48 hours and marinate in a Ziploc so that the marinade is always covering the steak and there is no need to constantly flip the meat. Let your steak rest at room temperature about 30 minutes prior to grilling.

Enjoy!!!

A nice London Broil ready to grill

Shared on : Creative Thursday's

Ginger Green Onion Noodles

Somehow I ended up with several bunches of green onions in my fridge that were begging to be used.

  (That's what happens when you go out to Larry's and they were 4 bunches for $1).  

I love green onions and their flavor.  A little sprinkle of them just really seem to add that "little somethin' extra" that seems to be missing when you finish a dish.  

But today, because I had so many to use, I needed something where the green onions  would be the star of the dish.  

I turned to Google, and one recipe caught my attention:  "Ginger Scallion Noodles." Doesn't it look tasty???

I really liked the sound of the sauce and the noodles, but I wanted something that would be a stand alone as an entire meal.  I thought of one of my favorite noodle salads and decided to make my own creation that would still taste as good as the real thing, but still fit within my dietary restrictions.

Ginger - Green Onion Noodles

3 large bunches  thinly sliced green onions (greens and whites)
1/2 cup finely minced peeled fresh ginger
1/2 cup grapeseed oil
Juice of 2 limes
2-3 tbl Fish sauce
2 tbl coconut aminos (or soy sauce)
2 tbl rice wine vinegar
1lb brown rice spaghetti noodles (or regular if not GF)
4 small heads Baby bok choy chopped
12oz fresh Bean sprouts
1 can Bamboo shoots, drained
1 can water chestnut slices, drained


Combine green onions, ginger, grapeseed oil, lime juice, fish sauce, coconut aminos, and vinegar.  Set aside.

Prepare noodles according to package directions.  Drain and rinse.

In a large bowl combine noodles, bok choy, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, and water chestnuts.  Add the green onion mixture.  Toss to combine.  Serve at room temperature or refrigerate until serving and enjoy cold. 

Lazy Homemade Salsa

My garden hasn't done as great as I hoped it would do this year.  

I'm not really sure what I'm doing right or wrong.  

I'm trying to grow everything organic, but stuff just isn't producing like I had hoped. 

This is only my 3rd year having a garden, so I know I still have lots of learning to go. 

One thing that amazed me this year is that I had a couple plants pop up out of no where and start bearing fruit. 

One is a zucchini plant that has produced two large squashes.

And the other is a yellow pear tomato plant that is the most abundant tomato plant I have ever seen.  

I picked so many of those tiny pear tomatoes the other night that I decided to make salsa.

If you have ever made salsa, it can be quite a labor intensive process, between peeling, seeding, and chopping all the tomatoes and other ingredients.  

And don't forget that time when you chopped a jalapeño and then rubbed your eyes a few minutes later....  OUCH! 

I did not have the time or the energy to do that to a bowl full of tiny tomatoes and a handful of tiny tomatillos. 

So I cheated. 

I got out my handy food processor, dumped everything in, gave it a whirl, and ended up with a tasty fresh salsa.

This "recipe" is very forgiving and can be modified according to your tastes and what you have on hand.

Lazy Homemade Salsa

4 cups of fresh tomatoes and tomatillos (husks removed) 

1 bunch of cilantro, large stems removed

1 onion, peeled and cut into quarters

1-2 jalapeños, stem removed, seeded (if desired...seeds=spicy)

Juice of 1-2 limes

Salt, to taste

Rinse off all your veggies.  Place all your ingredients, except salt, in the food processor and chop until desired consistency is reached, about 5-30 seconds.  Add salt to taste.  Can be served immediately, or chilled to let the flavors develop.  Stays good in the fridge for a couple of days (if it lasts that long!).

Eat with a giant bag of scoops because you are too tired to make dinner and then fall asleep on the couch in your {clean} gym clothes. 

Or pretend you are an adult and don't have the metabolism of a 12 year old, and use it in your favorite recipe, or to top a taco {salad} after your workout and post gym shower.