We are thrilled to announce that we were asked to contribute to the “Cook” section of Scottsdale Health Magazine on a monthly basis. Woohoo!! We thought this recipe for Brussels Sprouts & Kale Harvest Salad was the perfect healthy salad to this holiday season. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!!
Tomato stuffed wedge salad is simple to make and lets you look super gourmet, even if you’re not. Stuff food into food. Really, it’s true….just look at this simple salad. Isn’t it beautiful? Stuff a wedge salad inside a tomato and all of a sudden it takes it to a whole new level. Drizzle easy homemade yogurt blue cheese dressing over the top and crumble some crumbled turkey bacon and you can pretty much call yourself Julia Child or Giada De Laurentiis or Gordon Ramsey…you get the idea. You will look like you really know what you’re doing in the kitchen, even if you really don’t!
This is an awesome salad to serve if you’re entertaining. You can hollow the tomatoes out in advanced, make the salad dressing, clean the lettuce and cook up the turkey bacon. When it comes time to serve the salad, it’s easy to quickly assemble. You will look like an effortless cook in kitchen…you can even use the line “oh, I just threw this together…no biggie.” Because literally you DID just throw it together, even though it looks majorly Pinterest worthy.
So now that you know about our little secret about stuffing food inside of food it’s time to get started. Throw this salad together the next time you have guests over for dinner. Try it with Orange-Ginger Grilled Pork Tenderloin or your favorite grilled chicken and you will look like a pro!
GTK Guiltless Creamy Chicken Salad As seen on Your Life A to Z on 3TV
What’s not to like about creamy chicken salad?? Especially when you can get away with calling it guiltless! This is one of those go-to recipes that we both make on a weekly basis. We have subbed out the mayo in our recipe for 0% Greek yogurt which means that you still get the creamy texture without the fat. Add in chopped chicken breast, some fresh dill, chopped green onions and celery and finish it off with a squeeze of lime juice and S&P. That’s it…it’s that easy! With just a few steps you too can be eating this creamy chicken salad for lunch.
Once the chicken salad is made the possibilities are endless, you have so many choices when it comes to how you can serve it up. If you are serving it as an appetizer or at a brunch you can stuff a spoonful in a belgium endive spear. If you want to be really fancy you can hollow out the inside of a tomato or avocado and stuff the chicken salad inside. Otherwise, you can keep it traditional and eat it inside a pita or as a sandwich. We have it paired with these awesome seed crackers in this photo which is another great way to enjoy it as well. Whatever way you choose to eat it, you can’t go wrong. There is a reason why this is one of our all-time favorite lunch recipes!!
Use your left over chicken from our Sheet Pan Roasted Lemon Chicken with Purple Potatoes for this great salad.
I absolutely love Greek Salads, so we’ve created our own Mediterranean Quinoa Salad. I mean, how can you not love this? The flavor combination is pure perfection and that’s where the creative inspiration for this kicked up quinoa came from…so we present to you today our totally off the hook, bursting with flavor, have to have it, Mediterranean Quinoa Salad with Creamy Red Wine Vinaigrette! The good news is that the kids love this one too! When that happens, it’s like woohoo!!! Happy dance! Anyway, the other good news is that this salad is really easy to make. You could even throw it together if you have some leftover quinoa in the fridge…if you don’t have any, that’s okay, just boil some up and you’ll be ready to go. After you cook your quinoa, transfer it to a bowl to cool. You can get started on the rest of your salad while it’s cooling.
The remaining ingredients are easy peasy. I’m on this massive yellow bell pepper kick lately. I made 3 other recipes this week that have them in it. I can think of worse things to be on a kick with right?? So, just simply chop up the bell peppers, cucumber (I prefer an English cucumber and also leave the skin on), cherry tomatoes, feta cheese and kalamata olives. My daughter always requests extra olives. I don’t blame her for I too love me some olives. I also added in some fresh chopped flat leaf parsley. You don’t need a ton but adding a little will just brighten up the flavor.
The creamy red wine vinaigrette that you will drizzle over this salad is so darn good!! I know I say this a lot but it’s so good I could drink it. I don’t because that’s weird but that’s how delicious it is. I make my dressing in the blender simply because it’s easy to throw everything in at once and turn it on. You can also use an immersion blender. So all you need is red wine vinegar, dijon mustard, plain greek yogurt, garlic, lemon juice, honey, good quality olive oil and some salt and pepper! Get that all blended up and pour it over your salad, toss away until it’s nicely covered. You don’t have to use all of the dressing, just add it to your liking. You can reserve any leftover dressing in a covered container for a week in the fridge. This salad is also fantastic the next day too. I like to have it on hand for lunch (both for the kids and myself)…if that’s the case, it will go fast! Hope you enjoy!
If you are ever looking for a super quick and easy dinner, this delicious grilled flank steak arugula salad with creamy balsamic is your answer. There are very few ingredients in this dish and the flavors are just outa this world. Whoever came up with the idea to pair a fantastic charred steak with gorgonzola cheese and then top it off with a balsamic dressing is like a totally brilliant person and I wish I knew them. I should actually google that…I wonder if I could find out who that amazing person was?? Wow, you’d think I don’t have anything better to do with my time. Possibly??? Anyway, I digress…back to this dish. I’m gonna tell you just how easy this one is to make. Put these ingredients on your shopping list this week for sure. You’ll be so happy!!
Do you want the good news or the good news? You don’t even have to spend any time marinating this flank steak. I like to just drizzle it with a little olive oil and coat it generously with some kosher salt and freshly cracked pepper. Sometimes less is more when it comes to seasoning. Not to mention, this steak is being paired with some other pretty dominating flavors…gorgonzola and balsamic have a way of letting you know they are present….In a super good way of course!! Take your steak out of the fridge about 15-20 minutes prior to cooking it so it comes to room temp. It cooks better if it’s not super cold. Preheat the grill to high heat and after you season up the steak, throw it onto the nice hot grill. Let it cook for about 4-5 minutes on each side. Flank steak is pretty thin so it cooks up quickly. Once it’s cooked to your liking, remove it from the grill and let it rest for about 10 minutes.
While the steak is resting, you can focus on your remaining cast of characters for this dish. Piece of cake huh? Seems easy enough. You simply need your favorite gorgonzola cheese, some beautiful cherry tomatoes, arugula, an avocado (duh, we will always find a place for an avocado…I don’t care what it is…the avo is always invited to the party), and then of course, the creamy balsamic dressing. To say I could drink this dressing is an understatement…I may have even tried it before. Don’t judge. Anyway, time to assemble. Not rocket science here. Super simple…throw all the ingredients into a bowl, slice up the steak and lay it on top, then drizzle your dressing and voila! Look what just happened! It’s so pretty! Now, it’s your turn! You got this!!
If you have never had wheat berries before, we encourage you to do so! These little gems are not only delicious, but a total nutritional powerhouse as well. They are loaded with protein, fiber and iron and are high in Vitamin E, antioxidants and magnesium. Score! What makes them even more special is that they are unprocessed so they retain more of the nutrition than refined wheat products. Sounds like someone is on a wheat berry high horse right now!! Anywho…This wheat berry salad that you see here with the sweet peaches, feta, arugula and mint would be a great starting point for you for you to give the wheat berry a try! You’ve actually probably had them before like in a whole grain bread and you didn’t even know it!
The inspiration for this delicious salad came about when I smelled these gorgeous peaches at the market. Don’t you always smell your peaches? The really fragrant one’s mean they are super sweet and ready to be eaten. I’ve always got that creative thinking cap on when I want to incorporate a certain something into a meal. Pretty much sums up the fact that I’m always thinking about food huh? Well, it’s true. Please don’t judge.
So for this super simple salad, you start by cooking the wheat berries according to package directions. While those guys are cooking, get going on your vinaigrette. We chose a simple white wine vinegar one for this recipe as it compliments all of these flavors perfectly! Once the wheat berries are cooked, just drain them and transfer them to a bowl, toss them in the vinaigrette so they soak up all that delicious flavor and allow them to cool. Stir all of the remaining ingredients and it’s ready to go! This can be your main dish, or you can serve it with a protein of your choice like grilled chicken or salmon. Enjoy!
Dying over the fresh figs right now and eating as many as humanly possible before they are out of season. Growing up in an Italian family it was mandatory to like 3 things….pasta, red wine and figs. Am I wrong? And you weren’t really a true Italian unless you had a fig tree in your yard.
We created this salad because well, it was the perfect excuse to combine two of our favorite things…fresh figs and fried goat cheese. I mean really, is there a better combination than that? No, the answer is NO….there’s not! Fried goat cheese really needs no explanation, make it, eat it and you will see what we’re talking about. It’s pretty much one of the best things you’ve ever had in your life. Like, ever.
Not that it was really possible to make this salad even better, but…we did. We added perfectly caramelized roasted cauliflower. Oh yes we did! Topped it all off with some toasted pine nuts and drizzled our favorite maple balsamic vinaigrette over the top. Boom! What are you waiting for?? Hurry up and get to the store so you too can have this on your table tonight!
Who said salads are boring? Well this salad is here to prove the haters wrong! I have been obsessing over this salad for the last month or so…it’s been my go-to salad for the summer. It’s easy to start adding too many ingredients to a salad, but sometimes less is more. You want the individual flavors to stand out on their own but also blend well together when you are lucky enough to get everything all in one bite. So the stars of the show are roasted yellow beets – which scream summer, sweet red grapes, roasted and salted pistachios and feta cheese. All of this deliciousness is tossed with thin strips of lacinato kale and a light red wine vinaigrette made with whole grain mustard. Holla! Yep, it’s a party in your mouth and you definitely don’t want to miss the party! Oh, and try topping it with grilled chicken breast to turn the party up a notch!
Halloumi who?? That’s what we said the first time we heard about this special cheese that you can actually grill. How cool is that? A cheese that you can throw on the bbq or an indoor grill that turns the perfect shade of golden brown, becomes nice and soft on the inside and doesn’t melt all over the place. We knew we had to come up with a fun recipe using this awesome cheese…so we did! Introducing 4th of July on a stick! We thought we would serve this simple salad deconstructed with fresh berries and grilled halloumi cheese on a skewer to showcase the red, white and blue color scheme we have going on. Also because anything on a skewer is just fun to eat and it looks really cute on a bed of mixed greens.
Stych Photography
We have been waiting for the perfect salad to drizzle our amazing creamy poppyseed dressing all over and this salad happens to scream poppyseed dressing so that’s what it got. Just add some toasted pecans and top with the adorable berry and cheese skewers, drizzle the poppyseed dressing over the top and you will look like Martha Stewart serving this up! Any excuse to look like a pro with very little effort is pretty amazing. Side note- Halloumi cheese is seasonal to late spring/summer typically, they do sell it at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. If for some reason you can’t find halloumi cheese you can use feta cheese instead. Simply cut feta into large chunks, skip the grill and thread the feta on skewers in place of the halloumi cheese for an easy substitute.
Stych Photography
I have a feeling we are going to be eating this salad a lot this summer. Everything about it screams summer salad, not that you can’t eat it any other time of year, you can definitely do that too. Strawberries are so big and fat and juicy right now that it’s hard to resist throwing them into everything that they can possibly be thrown into…like this spinach and strawberry salad.
So this salad is pictured with chicken and also without chicken, whatever you fancy it’s great either way. Quinoa is in this salad as well, so you will still be getting your dose of protein if you decide to skip out on the chicken. We also tossed in toasted walnuts and creamy blue cheese which you definitely aren’t allowed to skip. The creamy balsamic dressing is a GTK staple and pairs perfectly with this salad. So if you have 10 spare minutes, then you have time to make the salad. I have a feeling you will be making this salad a bazillion times this summer as well!
