We
just got back from our honeymoon in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver (ate so
much great food – more on that soon!)
I
also just started a new job this week doing marketing for an architecture firm
which is super exciting. Lots of big
changes lately…
I
have to be up pretty early for work, so I’ve been packing my lunch the night
ahead. And after indulging ourselves on
vacation, we’re trying to eat healthy and get back to a routine.
It
seems that every place we visited in the northwest had amazing salads – a lot
of them including beets, sweet potatoes, avocado, and other ingredients I normally
associate with fall. I stocked up on
tons of these ingredients at Trader Joe’s as soon as we got back from our trip,
so we have plenty to keep us eating well.
One
of the non-traditional items we asked for on our wedding registry was gift
cards to Joe & Son’s Olive
Oils. We already bought several
varieties – including chipotle infused olive oil, Tuscan herb olive oil, and
fig balsamic. They are perfect for
simple salad dressings (and we’ve used them to drizzle on popcorn as well).
I’ve
made a version of this salad 3 times this week already – it’s my new favorite
lunch. You can add or subtract
ingredients as you like, but one of the things I like is that it has such a
wide variety of ingredients. You can
include whatever veggies you like, or even add hard-boiled eggs, chicken, or
other proteins.
Northwest Salad
Ingredients:
- Baby spinach
- Sweet potato, peeled, cut into
cubes, and roasted (follow this
recipe to bake them…)
- Mushrooms, sliced
- Pomegranate seeds (removed from
fruit – you can buy them pre-seeded or follow
these instructions to do it yourself if you are patient)
- Steamed & peeled baby beets
(Trader
Joe’s sells these pre-packaged to avoid the mess and hassle…), sliced
- Trader
Joe’s Harvest Grains blend, prepared according to package (it’s a mix
of Israeli couscous, orzo, baby garbanzo beans, and red quinoa)
- Trader Joe’s
Sweet & Spicy pecans (if you haven’t tried these already, do
yourself a favor and buy multiple bags…), broken into pieces
- Marinated mozzarella, chopped (I
got Trader
Joe’s aka Trader Giotto’s which is in olive oil with spices already)
- ½ an avocado, diced
- Olive oil & vinegar
dressing – we used Tuscan
Herb Olive Oil and Fig
Balsamic from Joe & Sons
- Freshly ground pepper
Directions:
Combine
all ingredients & enjoy! If you are
planning to bring this for lunch, wait to add the nuts and the dressing to keep
it from getting soggy (although this does hold up pretty well even with
dressing…)
