Salad Nights

The holiday weekend is over. Back to the daily routine of bills, cleaning, dishes, art projects, cleaning, playing, changing a mountain of diapers, CLEANING...you get the picture! As much as I love cooking, between a "new" baby (at some point I have to stop using that one) and a move, lately I've found that about the only way to make it to the end of the day still sane means NOT cooking. I just don't need that extra dose of chaos and mess at the end of the day. At the same time, eating out just makes us feel gross (well, except for our Mexican place, but that's another post!) So, a lot of our weeknights go just about the same as tonight - Salad Night!

Salad Nights involve two basic ingredients that we almost always have in the fridge - a huge container of mixed greens and Shaun's grilled chicken. The rest of the salad just kind of happens. Tomatoes ripe in the garden? Strawberries on sale this week? That's the fun part - no recipe involved - anything goes! We keep a few mostly homemade dressings on hand that go well with lots of things. It's kind of a win-win situation: You've got an easy, healthy dinner, and NO MESS! Love it.

Shaun would be diappointed if I didn't take a moment to shine the spotlight on him and his grilled chicken breasts :) I can tell you that he simply grills them with olive oil and Patti's seasoning, but he would be quick to proudly point out that it's more art than science! I'll have to admit, they're pretty darn tasty, and Audrey gobbles it up. They end up almost with a thin seasoned crust on the outside, but are super juicy inside. He usually grills a huge package of chicken breasts on Sunday or Monday, then we use them for salads and all sorts of other things for the rest of the week. Such a handy thing to have in the fridge!

Since I don't really have any new recipes planned for this week right now, I thought I'd just share tonight's salads. I'm starting to kind of feel like a nut taking pictures of everything before I eat! Shaun's salad simply had grilled chicken, tomatoes, feta and a balsamic vinegarette - just like the salad that we loved so much at our favorite pizza place in Niceville. Mine had chicken, dried cranberries, toasted almonds, feta and a poppyseed vinegarette. So simple, but I could eat it all day long. I love dried cranberries and almonds together so much that I like to toast a big batch of almonds, mix them with a bag of craisins, then keep the mix in a container for a snack -- and a super handy salad topping!

Sorry to bore you with my day-to-day food intake. I need to try some new recipes! The next thing you know I'll be posting pictures of my morning cereal, explaining the differences between Kelloggs and General Mills. Just kidding, I would never do that -- I like Target brand cereal the best! :)