Fresh Caprese Quinoa Salad

Welcome to Wednesday! Are you having a good week? Is your heart breaking over #Ferguson? Mine is. But that's another blog and another topic. Today, I'm sharing with you this recipe for Fresh Caprese Quinoa Salad from Fit Foodie Finds.

My family decided to try this salad for our Fourth of July celebration; we all love Caprese salad, so thought this looked delicious enough to try. :)

The truth? While quinoa is really getting a lot of hype right now, I still really have to watch the carbs on it. Even though it's "full of protein", some of it's still high carb, which kind of negates why one would want to eat it in the first place, in my shoes. :D

They salad was really fresh, really easy to fix. I think everyone enjoyed it as a different change of pace, with the texture of the quinoa. HOWEVER. I doubt we'll make it again. As a side salad only, I think we'll probably stick with a regular (or deconstructed!) Caprese salad, and leave the quinoa for another place. It's just a personal preference with this recipe; if you absolutely adore quinoa, you'll probably love this salad! :)

OK, that's if for me for today. Have a wonderful day, friend! Be BLESSED! (And if you didn't enter for the drawing in Monday's post, it's got EXTREMELY low entries right now!)

Asian-Style Cobb Salad

Hi! Did you have a good weekend? How's your June going? Mine's fast and furious! Goodness! :)

We decided to do these one night because we'd been SUPER busy, and I had all the ingredients on-hand. We like layered salads - where anyone can put whatever they want more of into their serving. This is mine!

The recipe comes from D*mn Delicious.

(I just don't get the idea of putting curse words into the name of your blog. Just me, but...!!!)

We liked it. We liked the fact it was easy, that things are on-hand for it. The dressing was nice and light, and I appreciated that. I'm keeping it in the "Good recipes to have", because I like the elements. We didn't LOVE it - it wasn't a demand performances - but it also wasn't a DON'T MAKE THIS EVER AGAIN. :D

OK, I'm outta here! Have a wonderful day, dear friend. BE BLESSED!

Mexican Rainbow Salad

Happy FRIDAY! :) Got big plans for the weekend? Whirlwind. That's what life is - how can it be he last Friday of February 2014 already?!?!

SO. This is a Mexican Rainbow Salad from What2Cook.

There IS lettuce underneath all those toppings. :) This was a huge hit with our family; we have such different dietary needs and tastes! With this salad, though, we could choose which rainbow stripes we wanted more or less of. Kenn's a HUGE salad fan, period - he loves anything that tastes fresh. :) And he loves corn. :D The dressing is good, too - we left it on the side, because none of us are huge dressing lovers. I highly recommend this salad - leftovers are easy to get rid of, too! (Make fajitas! Eat more salad! :D )

OK, I'm outta here. Have a WONDERFUL weekend! Be blessed - and thank you for reading my blog. :)

Caprese Salad: re-designed

Happy Monday! Sorry, no Manicure Monday this week; my nails are always weak, and I went too long without polish on them last week, so they mostly broke. So, I've got polish on them now, hoping to grow them out again quickly. :D They're fun to play with!

I did this Caprese Salad: re-designed from The Party Dress for my hostess appreciation luncheon in October.

Caprese salad is one of my all-time favorite dishes. I love the fresh tastes, with the balsamic vinegar topping it all off. So when I saw this salad presentation, I knew I wanted to try it.

For presentation, this is DEFINITELY a YES, PLEASE. I wish there was a way to be able to keep the dressing more with the other ingredients, but the only way I can think that that would be possible is if they were served on individual plates.

I used a steak knife to cut the tomatoes; I like to cut them with a serrated blade of some type, so the skin doesn't cause an issue with tearing. The steak knife made it possible to control the depth of the cut pretty easily; cutting almost all the way through is not my easiest task! :D

I do recommend you try this. It was absolutely beautiful!

OK, I'm outta here. I'm trying to recover from a cold that's settling into my chest. UGH. Prayers appreciated! Have a wonderful day! be BLESSED!!!

Shrimp (or Crab) Louis

Hope you're having a great week! This is one of those recipe I'm not quite sure how to review, but here we go. :D

It's for Shrimp or Crab Louis from Food.com.

So. I will tell you right now that we didn't make the dressing. We didn't have everything, and my dad's not too adventurous when it comes to dressings. :D So we used thousand island on the side. We did do the rest of the recipe, however, using - as you can tell - shrimp.

This got a NO, THANKS from me. I just don't care too much for shrimp and tomato together. And I think I added more shrimp - we love shrimp around here. :D But since I used the recipe more for the method than the dressing, I won't do it this way again.

But it was beautiful. :D

OK, I'm outta here! Have a wonderful day! Be BLESSED!

Chickpea and Tomato Salad

It's Wednesday! How's your week going? It's supposed to be getting warmer here; today's recipe is a no-cook recipe.

It comes via Green Lite Bites. It's created to be an entree all in its own; I used it as a side dish, but it's full of nutrition and freshness!

Believe it or not, I didn't change a THING on this recipe. :) It's a LOT of garlic; I used bottled minced, instead of doing it myself. I think it was probably a bit milder - which was good, because raw garlic tends to make me nauseous if it's too strong. Go figure. :D

I've made it twice; once for Kenn and me, and one for the infamous barbecue for Kenn's discipleship group. :D I let it sit longer when I made it for the party; the tomatoes were especially tasty! I can't say that chickpeas - AKA garbanzo beans - are my favorite legume, but they're OK. I like hummus, but I think it's because of all the other stuff you add in. :D

So, this is obviously a YES, PLEASE! recipe. It's now safely pinned to my "Favorite Recipes" board! :D Let me know what you think - or if there's something you'd like me to try and review for you. :) Have a WONDERFUL day! Be blessed!