Good For My Tummy

So it's summer and it's been busy! Some days we have been busy doing as little as possible! I've tried to balance the fun "go and do stuff" with the lets stay at home and chill stuff this summer! It's been a good summer, and I'm so very sad to see that it's almost over.

Second grade looms on the horizon and Avery's last year of preschool starts just after Labor Day. Sad.

But it's good too, because I do in my heart like structure and too many days of no structure makes me feel - I don't know - weird. Like purposeless... but I did not open Blogger today to share my feelings on summer and the advantages of structure in life - that's for another day!

I wanted to share a few new recipes we've been trying out over here! Thank you Pinterest! I'm addicted, what can I say, but it's been good, cause we've tried several new things and found several that have already become new favorites!

Here are a few of the things we had last week (or in the last couple of weeks!):

No-Nanoosh Quinoa Salad. 

It is as good as it looks!!! I have made this several times and it's so yummy! David likes it too, which is great!! I've made it as the recipes calls for and served it as a side item with a lean protean, and I've also made it with cubed or shredded chicken breast in it. Then I serve it as an all in one meal! Perfect for summer dinners after a long day at the pool! (or leftover lunch the next day!)

Southwest Chicken Salad:
     (adapted from Weight Watchers)

1/3 cup refrigerated salsa
1/3 cup rinsed and drained, no-salt added black beans
1/3 cup frozen (or fresh in the summer time!) baby yellow corn, thawed and drained
1/4 cup light ranch dressing
1/4 teaspoon chipotle chili powder
2 hearts of romaine lettuce, chopped
1 (6oz) package of cooked Southwest-seasoned chicken breast strips (such as Butterball (that's what I like to use))
3/4 cup halved grape tomatoes (or 8 wedges of a beautiful summer fresh slicing tomato)

This is pretty much the recipe I follow - except -- I use regular ranch dressing and add hot sauce until it "looks right" or until its hot enough. I also often use on my own salad Newman's Own Light Lime dressing! It's my FAVORITE!!! Yummy!

I also add half a diced avocado to mine (David doesn't like them, so I get to eat all the yummy avocado goodness!!)

So chop the lettuce (you can also used bag lettuce here - which makes it super convenient!)

Rise and drain the beans and corn. If your eating all of the ingredients, you can combine the salsa, corn and black beans, - again, David only eats the corn, so I put them all on separately - tastes the same in the end!

Add to salad, top with chicken and choice of dressings.... and serve!

Also good for a hot summer night!

Barbecue Beef Panini Sandwiches:
(Sorry there's no picture!) (Pampered Chef recipe)
1/4 cup (or a bit less, I used just enough for 2 sandwiches) light mayo
2 tbsp (or a bit more, I just mixed until it looked and tasted good) babecue sauce
8 slices (I only made 2 sandwiches, so I used 4) crusty Italian bread
8 slices (again, I only used 4) thinly sliced cheddar cheese
12 oz thinly sliced deli roast beef (I got lucky and Boars Head was on sale at Harris Teeter! YUM)
1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion

Directions:
1. The PC recipe doesn't say to do this, but I did cause I'm not a huge fan of raw onions on a warm sandwich - but I sauted the red onions first in a bit of EVOO.

2. While onions are sauteing - in a small bowl combine mayo and BBQ sauce, mix well. Lightly spread on one side of bread. Top with one slice of cheese followed by the onions, and then the roast beef, and then the other slice of cheese. Top with bread, Spray both sides of sandwich with EVOO spray or Pam.

2. Heat grill pan and press (if you have the PC grill pan, if not you can just grill them in a pan or on a griddle). Once warm place sandwiches in pan, top with press and grill for 1- 2 minutes on each side. (ours were kinda thick, so I did like 3 minutes on each side).

Serve with a fruit salad or small side salad. GOOD STUFF!!

Then the last thing we had this week, which I also didn't take any pictures of (Sorry!) came from a combination of this recipe and the Pampered Chef Asian Chicken Salad recipe... to avoid too much confusion, I'm going to give you what I did, and you can adjust or modify as you see fit. 

This is not my picture, it came for the same site as the link above, but mine looked similar to this! 

Dressing:
1/2 cup rice vinegar
3 tbsp unsalted creamy peanutbutter
3 tbsp reduced - sodium soy sauce
2 tbsp canola oil
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
2 tbsp sugar
fresh ground pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and whisk until smooth.

Salad:
12 3-inch wonton wrappers, sliced into 1/4-ince strips
3 cups chopped romaine lettuce
2 cups cooked whole wheat fusilli pasta
1 large chicken breast (I had a breast left from a rotisserie chicken I had gotten at Costco)
About 1/4 - 1/2 half cup of very finely diced onions - the recipes both call for green onions, but I didn't have any, so I used what I had!
1/4 cup sliced almonds, lightly toasted
1 tbsp sesame seeds

You are supposed to cut the wontons, spray with oil and cook in the oven at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes. I burned mine, so we didn't eat them.

I mixed all the above together, gave it a good toss. Separate into bowls and top with dressing. This turned out mighty tasty!

There are a few good meals that have worked well for us this summer! I hope that you are enjoying summer to it's fullest! Check back soon!