Cold shrimp and tangerine salad

This salad was a huge hit at home, and we both ate more than our one serving. It's going into regular rotation, I do believe:

I didn't have a concrete recipe I could tell you for this one, but roughly:

A few cups of fresh raw spinach
A few cups of medium sized shrimp, de-veined and washed and dried and cold
A couple sticks of hearts of palm (jarred, Trader Joes)
3 or 4 tangeries, cut up into individual pieces
2 cloves raw and crushed garlic

For the dressing, I did olive oil, balsamic, a sprinkle of the tangerine juice, and some of that garlic. The rest of the garlic I threw into the salad. The flavor combinations of the tangerines, shrimp, and garlic were heavenly.

Colorful salad

I was really proud of this one--it's just so pretty and we scarfed it down:

A simple toss:

Chopped romaine lettuce
1 or 2 hard-boiled eggs
1/2 or whole raw red pepper
A few sticks of hearts of palm (Trader Joe's, jarred, as always)
Sprinkle of sunflower seeds

Olive oil
Red wine vinegar (if you're me)
Balsamic vinegar (if you're my boyfriend)

I think we had this with some home-made pea soup, and it had us very satisfied.

Bloody Mary!

Well, I'm trying to make this blog about healthy, whole, tasty, easy-to-make foods, but sometimes, a girl just needs a cocktail...in the morning. Hence, my Bloody Mary recipe. It's still a work in progress, but I'm much happier with what I'm creating now than before, and I think this one is good enough to share.

I'm sorry this won't be as exact as some might like, but I'll keep updating, and it's more fun trying to figure your own exact recipe out anyway, right?

1 small can low-sodium V8 -- though, I think the regular sodium can might taste better in the end
2 shots of vodka --that's just how I roll
Juice of 1 lemon
3-5 grinds of the pepper mill
1 tablespoon (or more) of horseradish --the unprocessed kind, please, for the love of all things good
1 teaspoon olive juice from jarred olives
5 or more dashes of hot sauce
5 or more dashes of woresteshire sauce

Stir stir stir.

This is better with pickled asparagus or celery, but I didn't have it this morning. We enjoyed it with cornichons instead. Very much.

Ham and Cheese on scandinavian-style cracker bread

This snack is totally my Polish/Scandinavian heritage creepin' up on me. I like this as a well-balanced snack before a workout when I don't want a heavy meal. It's amazingly satisfying:

There isn't much of a recipe to this one:

Pickle
A couple small, thick slices of ham (I use the ham steak from the deli at Trader Joe's--I'm a big fan)
Half a slice of pepper jack cheese
Spicy mustard
Cracker bread (boyfriend calls this my "communist bread")--it's been a great substitution for me to avoid the more doughy and fatty breads

First of many, many salads

I love salads. Salads for dinner--dinner salads, if you will. Salads for lunch, for snacks. With all the love I feel for them, I don't know why I don't make an effort to eat them more often. That said, I will now make an effort to eat them more often, and will post all the different and easy concoctions I make. We had this one a few nights ago and really enjoyed it. Simple, pretty, crunchy, so good!

Easy as...pie:

Romaine lettuce, torn up
1 large cucumber
1 avocado
2 sticks of hearts of palm (I use the jarred ones from Trader Joes)
Generous sprinkle of capers
Squeeze of half a lemon--mostly to keep the Avocados from turning brown, but also because...who doesn't love a squeeze of lemon?
Olive oil
Red White vinegar (though the boy goes with balsamic)

It's not in the picture, but at the end, I got all worried about protein and added maybe 1/2 a cup of chick peas.

We were very happy with this one.

Beans, eggs, lettuce, oh my!

I was working at home today and determined to not resort to my usual I'm-stressed-out-and-need-comfort-carbs-in-huge-quantities, so I tried something a little new for me. I'm really trying to cut down on the white carbs and, more importantly, large portions, and came up with this. It took under 15 minutes to get ready, was delicious, and kept me full until late afternoon:

How awesome does that look? It tasted pretty awesome, and my body thanked me.

Here's what I did:

Maybe 1/3 or 1/4 can black refried beans
1/4 avocado
1/2 slice pepper jack cheese
1/2 cup to 1 cup chopped romaine lettuce
Loose pour of tomato salsa (I love trader joe's red table salsa)
1 egg

I put the beans on a plate, topped with cheese and heated up for a minute or so. In the meantime, I threw an egg in my pan and let it cook sunnyside up. I flipped it right at the end and topped my beans with it. Then I added my salsa, avocado, and lettuce around the sides. Delicious! Healthy! Happy lunch.

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Soup (in the slow cooker)

This was originally going to start as a Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili, but as I started throwing ingredients in there, I knew it was going to become the best Black Bean-ish soup I've ever had.

The ingredients were close to this:

1 can black beans
1 can refried black beans
1 can kidney beans
6 small to medium sweet potatoes
1 large can diced tomatoes
1 medium white onion
1 head garlic
Chicken broth

I threw all of the above in my large crock pot, added salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and let it sit for 8 and a half hours on low. When it was done, I mashed it with my hand held blender and topped with a little mozarella cheese and 1/4 avocado. Between me and the boyfriend, we have a LOT of leftovers, so this recipe is definitely fit to feed an army. I will continue to try to learn to cook for just 2 instead of 20.

Here's the finished product:

We absolutely loved it, and most of the work was opening cans and chopping onions. In the future, I  might want to add a scoop of sour cream or tomato salsa too.