A Week of Salads

The Hubby and I have been feeling a little... weighed down after the Thanksgiving holiday. We ate great on Thanksgiving but it was downhill after that. On Friday, we ate lunch at a restaurant and pizza for dinner. On Saturday, we ate Friday's leftovers. On Sunday, we ate stadium food at the NFL game which included hamburgers, fries, soft pretzels, and more than one vodka drink. Ugh. Needless to say, we decided to detox our bodies after this horrible weekend of eating. Jerame suggested salads all week which I initially balked at but the more I thought about it, the more I thought 'Why not?'. So here we are. I forgot to take a picture of Monday's entree, but I made Chicken Cobb Salad. It was yummy not to mention full of the good stuff i.e. vitamins, nutrients, protein, etc. The recipe is from Cooking Light so I do have a professional picture of the salad.

Cooking Light's Chicken Cobb Salad

Tuesday night was Cavatappi with Spinach, Chickpeas, and Feta. I love a good pasta salad so I thought this was fantastic! And I did take a picture of this one.

Cavatappi with Spinach, Chickpeas, and Feta

This one is super easy to make. Here are the ingredients:

• 8 cups chopped spinach
• 8 cups hot cooked cavatappi (12 ounces uncooked)
• 1 cup crumbed feta cheese
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 2 (19 ounce) cans of chickpeas
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed

The directions are to mix all ingredients in a large salad bowl. And you are done! I did alter the recipe in the following way. Since it was for 2, I cooked about 8 ounces of pasta (I do like leftover pasta salad for lunch the next day). I also only used 1 can of chickpeas and added 1 large tomato, diced. I mixed the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt, and pepper separately with a whisk and used that as dressing. I also included the zest of the lemon I juiced in the salad. At the end of the day this was light, refreshing, and pretty darn tasty. I highly recommend this one.