Going Healthy - Salads

Work being crazy for the past month. That's why I gone missing after the Bake A Difference event. Long hours, no weekend, no public holiday, night shift, dealing with shitty people etc. I almost throw in the white flag due to stress level and now I just can't wait to be over and never to deal with those unreasonable people again.

Enough of my complains, back to FOOD!
Minister and I started on salad diet again. We started beginning of last year and kinda of stop when the weather got colder.

Hope to gain some advantage thru the salad diet

• Maybe lose some of the weight we gain during our 6 weeks vacation
• Save $ for 2011 vacation
• Make full use of the "Salad" recipe book which I bought from SG
• Save time coz it's suppose to be simple and fuss free

As I haven't had the time to cook much for the past few weeks, a lot of the fresh food I bought got wasted. During the last marketing trip, I only bought what's required for the 3 different salads I planned to reduce wastage. Guess this will be something I hope to be better for 2011.

I got Minister to pick out 4 salads from the recipe book. That's going to be his work lunch and dinner for the next 2 days.

1st was Marinated Chicken Salad which I had for dinner at work. While I was mixing the dressing, I find that the recipe required quite an amount of red wine vinegar. I couldn't even test taste the dressing without choking! Lucky I manage to remind Minister not to pour all the dressing in one shot as I know he didn't fancy his food being too sour. It was prepared the night before. I packed the fresh mixed green, dressing and dressing all separately and chilled in the fridge. Don't like soggy salad. I actually heat the dressing and chicken before mixing everything together.

I'm rather surprised by this salad. In fact, I think I like it. It's slight spicy, sour and sweet. Plus it's a hot salad instead of cold.

Next was Mixed Seafood Salad. Got some fresh mussels and cooked prawn (was on special) from Coles. Used the squid rings which I had in the freezer. Cooked everything, mixed in dressing and chilled in the fridge. This salad take a bit of time and effort in preparation as I insists on getting mussels in shell, scrub and clean before cooking them in white wine. I could have gone the easy way out, getting cooked mussels or raw but without shell. I did wanted to get raw prawn as well but the cooked ones were on special.

I just had this salad this morning with some cos lettuce. I was doubting the amount whether will it actually fill my tummy up. But it did and I had a banana just to last me thru the afternoon.

Dinner for tonight was Salmon and Lentil Salad. Does anyone know whether am I able to find tinned cooked lentil? No idea why at the back of my mind, I thought I'm able to find cooked lentil in tin. But I definitely didn't have any luck finding them in Coles. In the end, bought a packet red and green lentil each. Read the instruction on the package and only soaked the green lentil overnight.
Boiled both lentil, pan-fried the salmon, mix them together with some cos lettuce. Mixed the dressing and packed them separate. This is a cold salad and it's pretty refreshing. Down side is the dressing actually contain mayonnaise which I try to avoid. But it did cut the fatty, oily taste of the salmon.


I got lots of entry which I need to catch up on! I haven't even write about my experience at Taxi, Maze, Charcoal Grill on the Hill and LuxBite!!! I haven't being cooking anything new nor trying out new recipe except for trying to make macarons which I fail terribly. Should I blog about it???