Breakfast Salad

Just back from vacation and three weeks of excellent daily swimming and walking. I’m a few pounds up from earlier this year, but stronger, clearer with a good fresh, relaxed mind and a strong desire to do a hard forward push.

I used to eat eggs for breakfast every single day, and in my mind, breakfast eggs (over easy, poached, soft boiled) with firm whites and intact runny yolks are married to toast. When I eat eggs for daily breakfast, I eat way too much bread. So these days, if I have eggs for breakfast at all, they make for a Sunday morning treat.

Eggs for lunch are a different animal altogether. I do the recumbent bike and stretch on the ball over my lunch hour and am ravenous by the time I get to lunch. Sandwiches are easy, but too much bread again, so I try to be prepared enough to remind myself that I love easy and fabulous salads. Since I’m not eating eggs for breakfast, I reach for them at lunch. In a salad, my brain experiences eggs as an entirely different food. They are a lovely salad protein and add a great mouth-feel overall.

This “Breakfast Salad” is what I just had for lunch:

1.5 – 2 cups of raw baby spinach
2 hard boiled eggs, chopped to chunks
1-2 tbsps of bacon crumbles
half a cup of halved cherry or grape tomatoes
a handful of diced red onion
balsamic vinegar to dress
a tiny splash of oil
salt and pepper to taste

Throw them all together and toss.

I use pre-washed clamshell spinach, keep a diced onion in the fridge at all times, and hard-boil enough eggs early in the week to do three salads.  For particularly summerish joy,  the tomatoes are picked right off the plant in my backyard.

Delicious!

BBQ for all week long

So this week, I tried something that I’m sure I’ll do all summer.

On Monday, hubby and I went grocery shopping. We bought a boatload of grillable veggies: peppers, portabellos, zucchini, eggplant, asparagus. We bought a big six breast flat of boneless chicken breasts, two sweet potatoes, some lean frozen burgers (turkey for me, beef for him) and a pack of whole grain Thintini buns . When we got them home we grilled up the whole batch (but only enough burgers for one meal), with the veggies having a dip in olive oil and balsamic beforehand. What resulted was a ton of grilled yumminess.

So then we ate:

Monday: A burger, sweet potato and grilled veggies.

Tuesday: whole wheat pasta with grilled veggies and chicken, grated asiago and a but of extra basalmic/oil to dress.

Wednesday: Big salad with spinach and spring mix, totally chunky with grilled veggies, grilled chicken, fresh tomatoes, crumbled blue cheese and pepitos and a simple pomegranate balsamic vinaigrette.

(Thursday’s dinner was papilliots and brown rice, which was unrelated, but I made extra rice so…)

Friday: Baby bok choy wilted up in a pan with the juice of a lime, some soy and a dollup of apple cider vinegar then stir fried with chopped up grilled veggies, half a cup of leftover brown rice and the last of the chicken until everything’s warm and mingled. Yummy!

Each meal tasted distinctly summery, but no two tasted alike.  It made everything simple, easy and healthy all week long. there’s still a meal full of veggies left in the fridge, probably lunch tomorrow with the last half cup of rice.

Granola

I love granola… it’s a staple for me these days. Most weekday mornings I eat three quarters of a cup of plain yogurt and a half cup of my home-made granola. The stuff available commercially, while yummy is full of fat and sugar.  I thought it would be good to post the process for it here. Most of the time I cook,  I feel through the cooking rather than measure things out exactly, so this recipe isn’t exact, it’s a best guesstimate and that means you can make adjustments as you like.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In one giant bowl, mix up the bulk of the granola:

I generally start with  a local, commercially available “porridge mix” that consists of large rolled oats, rolled rye, flax seeds & bran,  but that’s not available everywhere, so I’ll break it down:

-3 cups of large rolled oats (not instant oatmeal or short cook oatmeal, can also substitute part for other rolled grains such as rye)
-1/2 cup flax seeds
-1/2 cup bran flakes
-1/2 cup wheat germ (optional)
-1/2 tsp salt
-Optional: if you want something more protien rich, you can add up to a cup of powdered milk. I have done so but don’t usually.)

In another bowl, mix up the wet/flavour/binding ingredients:

-1/2 cup vegetable oil (I use canola)
-1/2 cup sugar free table syrup
-1/2 cup Splenda
-3 tbsp cinnamon
-3 tbsp vanilla extract
-3 tbsp maple extract
-Optional Substitutions: You could use real maple syrup, agave or honey in lieu of the SF table syrup & Splenda depending on your tolerance for sugar. I’ve never done this, so can’t instruct on amounts.

Once the wets are mixed together, slowly combine them with the bulk ingredients, mixing thoroughly. Spread the mixture out into large baking dishes (I use 2: a 8×11 and a 9×13) so that the bulk is only an inch or so deep. Bake for 30-40 minutes, stirring every 10. You’ll know it’s done when the mixture is totally dry, but not burned. Then take it out of the oven to cool.

While it’s cooking & cooling, prepare the yummy ingredients:

-2 cups of dried fruit. I use something like:

• 1/2 cup raisins (sultanas or thomsons)
• 1/2 cup chopped dried papaya
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1/4 cup chopped dried apple rings
• 1/4 cup chopped dried apricots

-1 cup cashew pieces, roasted, unsalted (or other nut/seed like: pecans, walnuts, pepitas, or sunflower seeds)

Once the grain bulk is cool, add the yummies and mix thoroughly. Store in an airtight jar. That’s it! There’s so much of it, that I end up using a large Costco pickle container.

I frequently make my own yogurt too. Don’t let the marketing folks at Activia fool you with their patented “B. Regularis” culture. Good old acidophilus is all the yogurt probiotic that you will ever need for a healthy digestive system. It’s simple, much cheaper, and healthier to make your own – the probiotic culture is live and stronger without preservatives or distribution time to kill it off or weaken it.

If you want to start making your own yogurt, post below and I’ll consider posting about it in the future.