Chicklets in the Kitchen

The food, not the dance.  Though I’d like some magic there, too. 

Salsa is, like, the perfect food.  Low in calories.  Full of flavor.  Makes things taste better.

So why this sudden love affair?  I made Tuna Noodlerrific tonight, but something was missing.  I had only celery as an add-in veggie, and it was just bland.  As I dug through my fridge to see what else I had, I found The Salsa.  So I mixed it in.

It?  Was awesome.  I didn’t think I would like it as much as I did, but YUM.

So have you ever combined foods that hadn’t been combined before?  Been pleasantly surprised by the results?  Or repulsed?

It’s almost that time again: summer, the season for sitting in the back yard, drinking a cold one (of your choice), listening to baseball on the radio, and overcooking your burgers.

Well, yours. I don’t eat meat.

There’s so much great veggie stuff to make on the grill. First on the list: corn. Know the secret to grilling corn on the cob? Clean off just enough of the husk to make it neat, trim the silks, and then drop the whole cob in a bucket of water and let it soak for a few hours. You won’t burn the corn on the grill. Well, unless you get so into the ball game or watching the big puffy clouds that you stop paying attention to the grill.

I have a stir-grill…you know what? I still don’t know what it’s called. It’s a ceramic basket-style thing that I spray with olive oil and toss in a bunch of veggies. When I need it, I ask the kids to “bring me the thingie”. Picked it up in Wegmans and it’s worth its weight in gold. Chop up some onions, peppers, eggplant, carrots, mushrooms, and stir ‘em up with some seasoning. Mmm!

And who doesn’t like kabobs? SO easy to make! Mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, eggplant chunks, onions, potatoes; you name it, you can spear it! And yeah, okay, our local supermarket has some brilliant salmon kabobs. (I’m so weak.)

Oh yeah, bring on the boys of summer and all that food!

Please welcome my guest Chicklet, Noelle Pierce! We met in the Romance’s Biggest Winner group, where teams work together to try to lose the most weight. Every week we report our success (or our gains) and have a great time encouraging each other! Noelle recently posted a fantastic salad recipe with us and I asked if she’d share it with the Chicklets. With summer not far away, doesn’t this sound delish?!

I love salads, more out of necessity than true love for rabbit food. I started eating salads last year, and got into the habit of eating at least one a day for either lunch or dinner, sometimes both. However, they weren’t as healthy as possible, because I LURVE those creamy dressings, and the fat-free versions of my honey mustard and cucumber ranch just weren’t cutting it. I tried the spritzes, but those only succeeded in making the lettuce taste gross, to me. Late last year, I accidentally discovered something: I don’t really need dressing at all! It came about because I had chicken salad (store-made, so it had tons of mayo in it, I’m sure), but didn’t want to mix salad dressing with the mayo, so I just scooped it directly on my lettuce. I’ve since tried this with egg salad (made by me, so I was able to control the mayo content), and today, I did it with a bunch of other veggies. Sooooo good, and filling, too! Here’s what I did: