Summer Staples

Quite possibly my favorite food in summer is my mom's Summer Spinach Salad. I'll try to come up with the dressing from memory (since that is what makes it awesome!)

Poppyseed dressing:
1/2 c canola oil
1/4 cup chopped onion
2 Tbsp+2 tsp red wine or cider vinegar
2 Tbsp +2tsp sugar
1/2? tsp salt (I'm not positive that it is a half, but I think it is)
1 1/2 tsp ground mustard (I use a little less since it is often too strong with that)
~1 tsp poppyseeds

Combine first six ingredients in blender. Blend until sugar is dissolved (or until there are no more onion chunks). Then add poppyseeds and mix thoroughly.

Technically you are supposed to make the salad all at once, but I just make up the dressing and make single serve salads (since not all of the ingredients keep fresh at the same rate) and I am not serving 4-6 at once.

Summer Spinach Salad
10 oz spinach washed and dried with stems removed
4 green onions, chopped
1 pt strawberries, quartered
1-2 bananas, sliced
Toasted almonds slivered or sliced
Poppyseed dressing (probably not the whole container)

Mix everything and toss. Or if you are serving yourself and yourself only, just throw what you want on it at any given time and toss.

Also, my mom makes this great, tasty, healthy black bean salad, which to me tastes like summer. And is a good use of leftover veggies, as I discovered on Thursday when trying to plan a dinner that would get rid of my green onions, peppers, and tomatoes. Again, I am approximating, but I think it's close.

Colorful Black Bean Salad
2 cans black beans
1 green or yellow bell pepper (my mom prefers yellow because it makes it more colorful), chopped
2 green onions, chopped
1 pt. grape tomatoes, cut in half
3 Tbsp+ cilantro, chopped

Combine beans and veggies and stir to mix well.

Dressing:
3 Tbsp fresh lemon (I use lime) juice
3/4 tsp cumin
1 Tbsp olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Stir dressing and add to bean and veggie mixture. Stir and enjoy!

They are both fresh and tasty and I make both frequently in summer. Actually, I always keep poppyseed dressing on hand in summer and just throw it on spinach anytime I have spinach. It keeps me eating my greens when I would much rather eat corn.

Last Week's Meals

So none of last week's meals were particularly complicated, but they were tasty! I bought a few magazines on summer healthy cooking, and they made all the difference. Lots of citrus and mint flavors, which were used in ways I wouldn't think to and made everything a lot tastier.

Chicken Pasta Salad with Almonds
Basically chicken salad on whole wheat penne rather than bread. Also, it uses fat free plain yogurt rather than mayo to give it creaminess without the fat (and for those of us who have plain yogurt but not mayo in the fridge, it works well), with a little lemon zest to add some kick. Also, mint helps with adding a little extra freshness. I added grapes because I like grapes in my chicken salad. It also had mint for freshness and almonds for crunch. Oh, and parsley, but I substituted cilantro. Talk about a well organized description :-P

Stuffed Turkey Burgers
Use 1 1/4 pound of ground turkey, shredded mozz cheese, roasted red peppers cut into small pieces. Pack the turkey into 8 (I made 10) small patties and put shredded mozzerella, and a few red peppers on half paties. Place remaining on top and seal in the cheese and red peppers, sprinkle with ground pepper and sea salt, then grill until brown. These are super tasty with sprouts :). I also added cilantro, but couldn't taste it. Also, make sure you seal them complely, that's probably pretty obvious, but I thought I did a good job but most of the cheese oozed out. Actually, I probably didn't add enough cheese, you can probably fit a whole tablespoon in, I was worried it wouldn't fit so just put a pinch in.

Grilled Veggie Wrap
Cut 2 zucchini in thin strips lengthwise and grill until translucent and tender. Cut two roasted red peppers in quarters (or chop in little pieces because you are just using leftover from your turkey burgers). Toast a quarter cup pine nuts. Cut 1/4-1/2 a red onion into thin slices. Chop a little mint and spinach. Take whole wheat wraps (I just used tortillas) and spread your favorite hummus on them, sprinkle with pine nuts and put 3 strips of zucchini (well, a fourth of what you have, this is supposed to serve 4, I just ate one every day and prepared them in the morning), two red pepper pieces, a few onion slices, spinach and mint. Then wrap and eat! I used alphalfa sprouts again for this, in place of spinach because I had another spinach recipe in mind:

Cumin Chickpea and Spinach Salad
This was my favorite meal of the week.
One can chickpeas (or 2/3 cup dried and prepared), 2 tbsp parsley (again, I subbed cilantro!), 1/4 cup diced red onion
Mix above.
Dressing: 2 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice, 1/4 tsp finely ground lemon zest, 3/4 tsp (or more if you are me!), cumin, pinch cayenne. Freshly ground salt and pepper. Mix these and pour over chickpea mixture
Yogurt sauce: 1 tbsp orange juice, 1/4 finely grated orange zest, 1/4 tsp honey, 3 tbsp plain yogurt.

Serve chickpea mixture over spinach garnish with mint and yogurt dressing.
So tasty! Extremely refreshing and it tastes like summer!