A Little of This, Some of That

 

 

The Recipe ReDux was developed as a fun and social way to provide great tasting, healthful recipes based on whole foods and sound nutrition principals. We participate in this wonderful blog-roll monthly, with exciting themes, and then we can also provide other nutrition professional’s blogs for you enjoyment too!  This month’s theme was “bring your family back to the table.”  Check out my answer to feeding a busy family quickly!

School has started and I find I have even less time to get dinner on the table then before. We have soccer and football practice to compete with, and set construction and games of course!  Everyone has somewhere to go or else is just returning.  We make it a priority to ALWAYS eat dinner together, unless absolutely impossible.  It’s the one time per day we can all regroup as a family.

Add to our busy lifestyle a HUGE garden.  It is the middle of August, and my garden is slowing down, so I may get two cucumbers, a few tomatoes, and eggplant, and a few herbs to use before they go bad. What do I do with a little of everything?  I see this as a no-brainier! Make a dinner salad!

I always keep a stocked pantry, so it wasn’t hard to pull a bag of cooked chicken breasts out to thaw. When I purchase chicken, I cook it immediately, use some and freeze the rest. I can take one out and place it in my lunch, or use for soup or whatever.

I always have carrots in the fridge-so they would be included in dinner too!

I took my mixture of vegetables (eggplant, onion, green pepper, carrots, and garlic) and chopped them for roasting. They roast the best if all items are cut to the same size.  I placed them on a sheet pan for 45 minutes at 450 degrees with a drizzle of olive oil and spices. They also received a sprinkle of parmesan before going in the oven for a little crunch.  I use left-over pizza cheese packets to decrease the amount I may try to use! Roasting really brings out the flavor in them!

While the garden veggies were roasting, I cut up the chicken, cucumbers, tomatoes and basil. I placed them all in a bowl, and made a simple vinaigrette to go on top. I used a little canola oil, red wine vinegar, Italian Seasoning, minced garlic, and sea salt. This went into the bowl too!

Once the roasted vegetables cooled, I mixed everything all together.  In less than an hour, and with little prep, we had dinner. Lots of vegetables, protein and a little fat to maintain satiety-and we were ready to head back out they door! On top of that, we had a ripe cantaloupe too–so dinner was complete!

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