The Best Summer-time Salad

There was a cute restaurant near my family called Noodles and CO. that my aunt and I would frequent. I always got the Thai peanut noodles with chicken and she always got a dumplings and a salad. She would rotate between a few different salads and one day decided to try a new one, the Spinach Pear salad.

It quickly became her go to salad and it wasn’t very difficult to duplicate (as in ridiculously easy). The flavors go together SO well, so I’m sharing this delicious salad with you. It’s so worth making and is fantastic for hot summer days (like it has been recently)

One taste and you’ll be hooked.

It’s basic and delicious. mmm

Ingredients: Baby Spinach
Pear (ripe)
walnuts
Bleu Cheese
Balsamic Vinegar reduction*

Before you start setting up the salad, you want to toast your walnuts. It’s a very small thing to do that really adds to the taste. I just put some tin foil on a toaster pan, crumble walnuts onto the foil and toast them in my toaster oven. You can do it in a regular oven as well. Note that this isn’t a necessary thing to do but it makes the walnuts extra crunchy and oh so delicious.

To put the salad together, set up your bed of spinach and top with sliced (or diced) pears. Crumble Bleu cheese on top. Top with crushed and toasted walnuts. Drizzle with a balsamic vinegar reduction.

*to make the balsamic vinegar reduction, slowly heat balsamic vinegar on the stove until it has reduced by half. You need to do this slow, because it can burn very easily. So worth doing though. I have also used Balsamic Condimenti like this one, which is basically already reduced balsamic vinegar (but it’s expensive. I would never have it if my aunt didn’t buy it for me regularly haha.)

 

That’s it! I was surprised that even T liked this (I made it for him last night to go with our pizzas!) Such a great side and so easy to throw together.

Tonight I need to use up the rest of that bleu cheese. Any suggestions?

Hummus wrap

While I was living at home with my parents, I got super attached to the fridge. It was always stocked, full of delicious goodies and no one noticed if you stole something.

After my mom’s accident, though, the fridge was not as bountiful as it used to be. So one day I came home from school, starving and decided to make myself something yummy. I opened the fridge and saw… Nothing good. Ugh. After scrounging a bit, I found some Hummus. Opening up the produce drawer, I saw some veggies that needed eating. And thus came my Hummus wrap.

Now, I know its nothing unique or special, really. But its delicious and just what I need on hot days.

Ingredients:
Wrap (I used to use wheat wraps but now use corn to stay GF. Just microwave it for 15 seconds so it doesn’t fall apart on you.)
Hummus of your choice
Veggies (i usually use red pepper, snow peas, spinnach, broccoli… Honestly whatever I have at the time!)
Salsa

Spread Hummus on wrap and top with veggies. Spoon a couple tsps of salsa on top for flavor.

Now I won’t lie, its not the easiest thing to eat. But its so delicious I don’t even mind. One whole wrap is only about 150 calories (and so healthy that it should be 0) YUM!

(this wrap had spinach and snow peas in it. I ran out of peppers)