Healthy Family Hangout

Wednesday was a "Do-It-Yourself Night" with Panini Sandwiches and Salad.  To the left is a picture of the salad bar in progress.  Notice the bowl?  It's the perfect size for a side salad.  I found a salad-making approach that helps keep us from drenching our salad with salad dressing and all those extra calories!  We add a little lettuce into the bowl and just 1 tablespoon of salad dressing, toss it to give the lettuce a good coating, and add our choice of ingredients.  We then transfer it to a plate, drizzle with just a little salad dressing and it's ready to eat. 

I have made broccoli salad many times over the years, but it wasn't until recently that Christian has taken a liking to it.  Normally I simply mix in mayo and equal amounts of dried cranberries, cheddar cheese and bacon bites and sometimes diced onion or pine nuts with one bunch of broccoli cut into bite sized pieces.  But for our backyard BBQ last week I tried something new. Somewhere along my recipe research I read to try sunflower seeds instead of pine nuts because they are a cheaper, but still tasty alternative.  We already had some sitting in the pantry so I decided that it was a good time to test it out.  I also decided to try a new dressing recipe.  Usually I just scoop heaping spoonfuls of mayo into the salad without measuring.  This time I decided to try a yogurt-based dressing.   Zingy Dressing 1/2 cup Plain Yogurt 1/3 cup Mayo 2 tbsp Cider Vinegar 1/2 tbsp Sugar  The cider vinegar gave the dressing a nice zing which I liked b...

What says summer better than watermelon?!  And best of all - the kids love it!  We recently decided to try a water melon salad.  We had always simply sliced the perfect watermelon into wedges. Yes, the perfect watermelon.  According to Millard, "Choosing the proper watermelon involves thumbing the finger on the melon, listing for a thud and feeling for a vibration."  And believe me folks, this sometimes takes a little time.  Myself and Alexander sometimes wander off to continue grocery shopping while Millard and Christian dig through the bin of watermelons.  It can be quite the adventure. The watermelon salad peeked our curiosity.  The idea of pairing crumbled feta cheese, thinly sliced shallots and fresh mint with watermelon cubes sounded very refreshing.  We followed a recipe, but neither of us really liked it.  We felt that the mint was a little too overpowering.  We will definitely try to make it again, but will probably pass ...