Taco Salad with Lime Cilantro Dressing

This dressing was amazing! It had a strong flavor like many other favorite recipes using cilantro and lime along with......lots of oil. In the cookbook Forks Over Knives they use beans as the base for many dressings. I love this idea! They have a dressing similar to this one...but I changed a few of the spices and added a couple ingredients. Ha! I guess I modified it :) my kids loved it! We also used the dressing on our Veggie burgers this past weekend. It gave it amazing flavor! Hope you enjoy! 

Taco Salad With Lime Cilantro Dressing

6-8 cups mixed greens

1 large bunch cilantro, rinsed and chopped

4-6 scallions sliced

2-3 tomatoes, diced

1 cucumber, diced

6-10 corn tortillas

For Dressing:

1 cup white beans

 (any kind of white bean, including cannellini beans)

2 cups cilantro

1/2 cup almond milk
1/4 cup lime juice

2 teaspoons cumin

1 teaspoon salt

4 cloves garlic, crushed

To make the tortilla chip strips, preheat oven to broil on high. Using a large cookie sheet, spray with nonstick spray. Cut the corn tortillas into strips and place on the cookie sheet. Spray the strips with nonstick spray and sprinkle salt if so desired. Broil only a few minutes, turn strips over and broil only about another minute. They brown quickly! Do not leave them for long. Check them every minute.

For the dressing: combine all ingredients in a blender and blend well. Add a little more milk until desired consistency is reached. 

Assemble all ingredients for the salad. Pour dressing on each individual salad. Serves 4-6

Pomegranate Mandarin Pecan Salad

I eat so many salads that I need variety! This salad was created from some of my favorite things to eat right now. The combination was so good!

Pomegranate Mandarin Pecan Salad

1 head of washed organic romaine lettuce, chopped 

1-2 mandarin oranges, peeled and sectioned and cut in half

1/4 cup organic raisins

1/4 pecan pieces

1/4 cup pumpkin seeds

1 pomegranate seeds

Balsamic vinaigrette 

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Serves two. Enjoy!

Roasted Sunflower Seed Green Salad

Every day I try to eat a huge salad and I need lots of variety!  I was in the mood for salty and sweet, so I made this nummy salad. I hope you enjoy it!!

Roasted Sunflower Seed Green Salad

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

pinch of salt

1 tablespoon oil

2-3 cups chopped romaine lettuce

1 large handful cherry tomatoes

1/4 cup raisins

 1 teaspoon Balsamic Vinegar (optional)

In a small skillet on medium heat, toast sunflower seeds and salt in oil until a light toasty brown color.  In a large bowl, combine lettuce, tomatoes, raisins, roasted sunflower seeds and balsamic vinegar.  Serves 1

Cherry Apricot Salad

 I'm so grateful to hear of your compliments about this new blog of ours!  I love any feedback you have to give.  I appreciate all the questions I'm receiving about what we are doing.  I know that eating more plant based seems like such an overwhelming thing, but it is so simple and I endeavor to show that here.  I was in the store today and picked up some cherries, because they are so amazingly delicious and I'm going to enjoy the fact that they are in season right now.  I walked around the fruit (instead of the candy isle) and saw apricots.  They weren't particularly cheap, but I picked up half a dozen to have for a treat.  As I pulled them out at home, I thought, how cool would it be to combine these two fruits and come up with a yummy dressing for them.  So I did!  This was such a yummy treat after lunch today.  I hope you like this recipe!

Cherry Apricot Salad

7 cherries, halved and pitted

5-6 apricots, halved and halved again

1 Tablespoon lime juice

1 teaspoon walnut oil 

(I buy mine at Smiths)

2 teaspoons honey

In a small bowl combine the fruit.  Drizzle the honey over the fruit.  In a small cup combine the walnut oil and lime juice and mix well with a fork.  Pour over the fruit and honey.  Serves one.

Dill Citrus Salad

We buy oranges, grapefruit, avocado, lemons, romaine and kale by the box every week from a local grocery store that gives us only a 10-20% markup versus the 40-50 % when paying per head of lettuce or per pound for fruit.  That being said, I never worry about how much of this stuff we eat.  The kids eat fruits and veggies freely because that's all we have in the house!  I am always trying to put variations on our green salads.  I also have dill growing in my garden and it is coming on in full force!  I'm love this herb!  It smells so heavenly!  My girls will gather flowers in the yard along with the flowers from the dill.  They think they are so pretty :)  

This recipe is one variation of many that I threw together for lunch the other day.  Many people ask me what I eat every day.  I eat fruits and veggies, lots and lots of them!  I usually juice in the morning before my workout (I will post about juicing shortly), eat a piece of fruit after my workout.  For lunch, I eat a huge salad with some kind of variation of fruits and veggies, sometimes beans, in the form of hummus or a quick chili (that post upcoming as well!).  For dinner, I again eat a huge salad, as big as the plate above with whatever I make for dinner that night.  If I'm hungry in the evening I might have a piece of fruit but usually I'm very full.  In all my reading, healing the body begins and almost ends with fresh, live foods, namely fruits and vegetables!  (Take a quick look again at the Alkaline Food List, most of the alkaline foods are vegetables.  The more alkaline your body, the less sickness and degenerative disease).  Legumes and grains are important but not as important as fresh fruits and veggies.  NEVER feel guilty about eating too many of them!  I haven't and I've had so much success in how I feel!

Dill Citrus Salad

2-3 cups fresh romaine lettuce, chopped

Finely shredded Cabbage, to your liking

1 grapefruit

1 orange

1 avocado

1/4 cup chopped nuts, your choice

2 -3 tablespoons fresh dill

Assemble your romaine and cabbage on your plate.  Set aside.  Slice your grapefruit and orange in half.  Cut the skin off of one half of the orange and grapefruit, then slice the fruit on your salad.  Peel and chop the avocado into chunks.  Chop your preferred choice of nuts, (I used walnuts, but I usually like almonds).  Finely chop the dill.  Place the avocado, nuts and dill on top of your fruit and greens.  For Dressing: take your remaining half of grapefruit and orange and squeeze the juice over the top of your salad.  

Serves 1-2