Friday Night MyPlate

  I love to cook, obviously, but I also enjoy dining out, especially on the weekends. Restaurant meals, even pizza, can be healthy if you keep in mind the MyPlate model and Dietary Guidelines. Tonight I had carry-out veggie pizza and added a salad to make half my plate vegetables. A few olives and the salad dressing added heart healthy polyunsaturated fats. It was delicious! 

Not gonna lie, I had 2 pieces. 

Fresh Salads

Today I have 5 fresh salad recipes ideal for summer. 

Chunky Chicken Salad
Ingredients: 
2 1/2 lb. chicken breast 

1 1/2 cups celery

1 1/2 cups grapes (any variety)

1 cup pecans

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

1 cup lite mayo

Instructions:

Boil chicken until cooked thoroughly. Tear into bite-sized pieces. 

Chop celery, cut grapes in half, and break pecans in half. 

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. 

When boiling the chicken for this recipe, I like to use a chopped onion and a few stalks of celery, usually the yellow inner stalks from the bunch, with the leaves still on. Throw everything into a stock pot and cook the chicken. This makes the most delicious broth that can be drained and used later for any type of soup or dumplings! 

This recipe is also versatile. Any variety of grapes can be used, whatever you prefer or have on hand. The chicken salad is also good with some pineapple added. It's excellent on a green salad, a sandwich, or with some crackers.

Pear Spinach Salad

Ingredients: 

1 bag raw spinach leaves

1 ripe green pear

1 cup walnuts

2 cups raspberry vinaigrette dressing

Instructions:

Slice pears longways. 

Toss all ingredients together in a large salad bowl. 

Serve immediately. 

This salad is healthy, low calorie, and super quick and easy. The ingredients really don't even have to be measured. You can just toss everything together and add the dressing straight from the bottle. 

Summer Salad

Ingredients: 

1 small container cottage cheese

1 Tbsp. chopped green onion

1/2 cup finely chopped cucumber

1/2 cup finely chopped tomato

Instructions: 

Combine all ingredients. 

Refrigerate for a few hours to allow the flavors to mingle.

Simple and delicious! 

The final 2 salads for this post are linked from previous articles on my blog. 

The first is my absolute favorite fruit salad ever, so enjoy! 

http://goodsouthernfood.blogspot.com/2011/02/aunties-fruit-salad-recipe.html

And the second is a delicious crab salad.

http://goodsouthernfood.blogspot.com/2011/02/seafood-recipe.html

Burritos

It's the weekend, so I decided to prepare some bean burritos to freeze for convenience during the work week. I used whole wheat tortillas, a can of refried beans, a chopped onion, taco sauce, and mozzarella cheese. The whole wheat tortillas and beans are good sources of fiber, and part-skim mozzarella cheese is the lowest fat natural cheese. 
Just put a scoop of beans on a tortilla, add some onions, a few spoonfuls of taco sauce, and top with a sprinkling of cheese. Then roll up the burritos, and place them in a container to freeze. 

For a quick dinner or something to pack for lunch during the week, just grab a burrito from the freezer. Microwave it, and you've got a meal. Add some fresh lettuce, tomato, and cilantro, or have chips and salsa. Just remember to check the serving size on the tortilla chips.