September Salads: Weekend Update

Day 24, 25 & 26: SICK SICK SICK!!!
Day 27: Romaine, pears, craisins, candied almonds, gorgonzola & poppy seed dressing.
Day 28: Romaine, tomato, red bell pepper, cucumber, avocado, croutons & homemade balsamic vinaigrette.

Oh I was sick this weekend. So so sick. So I didn't really feel like eating anything at all let alone salads. Oh well! I'll make up those days the first few days of October. I jumped right back into things with a delicious salad yesterday. I was actually trying out this recipe that I found on Pinterest. I was so excited to try that dressing recipe because I had a lot of luck with the last dressing I had made. It was just not for me at all. Oh well you win some you loose some. It was still a great salad with the poppyseed dressing on it. Even Denny loved it.

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September Salads: Week in Review

There are a few reasons I haven't posted at all this week. The number on reason though is I'm a little bored with salads. And although I've been really busy I feel like there hasn't been anything else going on that is particularly blog worthy.

The second reason is I'm documenting everything I eat in an iPhone app called My Fitness Pal. Which has been amazing! However documenting there and here just sounded too repetitive for me. So I thought I would do a weekly wrap up instead. So here I go.

Day 17: Half Cosi Signature Salad with light dressing and half the cheese.

Day 18: *Sigh* FAIL.

Day 19: Subway Turkey Breast Salad with Sweet Onion Sauce.

Day 20: Green leaf lettuce, strawberries, sugared almonds, feta cheese & poppy seed dressing AND Denny's Chinese chicken salad for dinner. 

Day 21: Green leaf lettuce, avocado, cucumber, tomatoes, balsamic vinaigrette.

Day 22: Green leaf lettuce, avocado, tomatoes, corn, croutons & poppy seed dressing.

Day 23: Green leaf lettuce, avocado, tomatoes, corn, croutons, shredded jalapeno cheddar cheese & balsamic vinaigrette.

As you can see I missed a day last Sunday. Instead of getting bent out of shape and down on myself for not accomplishing my goal I made up for it on Tuesday with TWO salads! Really I was planning a great salad for Sunday night but I had a latter lunch that was rather big. So come time for dinner I wasn't that hungry. I had some yogurt & fruit instead (should I count that as a fruit salad?). The last few days haven't been all that creative but it still works. 

Also you may have noticed I took Friday's post about the fried egg salad down. I had a few people tell me that the picture sort of resembled a certain female reproductive organ. The more I looked at it the more I saw it. So down it came. I'm only a tiny bit embarrassed. No biggie.

So there you have. My September Salads week in review. Next week is the last week!

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September Salad: Day 15

Day 15: romaine, celery, cucumber, avocado, red bell pepper, black beans, corn, honey mustard Vinaigrette.

Today's salad is very similar to yesterday's. At this point in the week I'm using up as much produce in my fridge as I can before it goes bad. I'm a much better shopper when it comes to produce now. And eater for that matter. I know what will last and what doesn't. The things that don't last long make it into salads at the beginning of the week. Such as Strawberries. Now I'm working on the things that have been in there a while longer. Like the celery. This may seem obvious to some but for me the non-veggie eater I've had to learn this. Another thing I've learned is that I need to find other ways to add in calories. I'll do another post all about that tomorrow though.

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September Salad: Day 14

Day 14: Romaine, cherry tomatoes, avocado, corn, black beans with homemade honey mustard vinaigrette.

I'm two weeks into my goal! Feels pretty good! There are a couple things I've learned in the past two weeks. Buying bagged salad mixes is a rip off. They only last for maybe two days. A head of Romaine will last several days and costs less. Same goes for salad dressing. It's easy to make & so tasty. However nothing compares to Brianna's Poppy Seed Dressing. I will always have a bottle of that one hand. Also I love avocado with my whole heart but man does it have a lot of calories. Good thing I need the extra calories right now right? It's been a pretty tasty two weeks that's for sure.

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September Salad: Day 13

Day 13: romaine, strawberries, avocado, gorgonzola & Newman's Own Balsamic Vinaigrette.

Mmmmm I love salads with strawberries. I'm taking advantage of them being so cheap right now. Pretty soon they won't be. I really try hard to eat in season.

I realize my pictures are really bad. And it's purely out of laziness. Although I love Instagram it doesn't do my salads justice. However I just don't have the time at lunch to break out the camera and set up a nice shot. So I snap a picture with my iPhone and call it good. We'll just have to deal with it.

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September Salads: Days 10, 11 & 12

Day 10: Half Wendy's Apple Pecan Chicken Salad (soooo good).

Day 11: Mediterranean Salad with arugala, turkey, olives & hummus.

Day 12: What I call the ultra basic. Romaine, tomato, celery, cucumber with poppy seed dressing.

Today's salad may seem totally boring but it taught me a lesson. A salad doesn't need a lot of fancy toppings to be tasty, delicious & filling. My Mother served a similar salad every single night at dinner growing up. It's basic. It's great. No need to fuss every day.

When I started out the month I was sure these posts would be skipped over and ignored. It was just a way for me to be accountable for a goal. I'm really surprised by how many people have come and talked to me about "my salads". I'm surprised that a couple people have even joined me. I'm so grateful for the encouragement. Under normal circumstances I would have given up by now. Blogging about this has really kept me on track. It's kinda awesome.

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September Salad: Day 8 & 9

Days 8 & 9: Chinese Chicken Salad Ala Denny Leclerc
Or a more appropriate title would be "The Salad I've Been Waiting Three Years For". Yes three years. Many of you may know my husband works for the family business. An asian stir fry restaurant called Fire Wok. It's great! I love it! I think the food is pretty yummy, but I am pretty biased. The menu is wide and varies a lot. I'll be honest though one area I always thought was lacking was the salads. They offer two and I don't really like either of them. Hate to say it but it's true. One of the salads is made up of ice berg lettuce, spicy dressing and friend chicken. It has no nutritional value what so ever. So bad for you. It's pretty bad when you can get a better asian chicken salad at McDonald's. So I've been pestering him for years about adding another option to the menu. Finally the man delivered. This salad was just what I was hoping for. It's so good I ate it two days in a row. I won't tell you what's in it. I can't give away the recipe. It's not on the menu yet. Hopefully soon. If you want you could go to Fire Wok's Facebook Page, like them, and then leave a comment requesting they add this salad to the menu. I need your help friends! Let's make it happen!

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