Iron Heart Personal Training

So everyone you know took part in the 365 Day Project a while back, chronicling  their lives on facebook or instagram with a daily picture of their kids or their pet or themselves….well, here is my take on that idea….

Enter the 365 Day Salad Project!

How this came about was, my husband always jokes that I can take any meal and make it into a salad….and, well, it’s kind of true.  I am the a person who likes to eat, a lot, so at dinner time, when I like to really fill up, I have taken to putting whatever it is we are eating as a family, on a bed of spinach or greens.  It satisfies my need to eat what my family is having, to get my daily fill of healthy fresh veggies, avoid eating a boat load of starchy carbs late in the day and most importantly, lol, to feel like I’m eating a large volume of food!  Here they are, not always fancy, sometimes a little odd, sometimes AMAZING, my 365 Day Salad Project!

I’ve been at it for a few weeks on my facebook page, Iron Heart Personal Training, so here is a few weeks in review for you!

DAY ONE:  THE PORK ‘N BEANS

…So I’m not usually a big bean fan, but my little Mr Westin wanted “beans from a can” lol, so I cracked one open…and so it was up to him and I to eat them (because the rest of the family would rather eat eyeballs than beans), so while the rest of the family had coleslaw and pork on a bun, I had mine on a bed of spinach, layered on some coleslaw,  topped with roast pork slices and finished with the baked beans.  pretty good!

DAY TWO:

classic spinach, mushroom, strawberry salad topped with avocado, red onion, roasted chicken breast and my homemade basalmic dressing.  simple but so good!

DAY THREE:

“Buffalo chicken wing night” salad!  well, kinda…sliced chicken breast (skin on/bone in chicken that had been roasted with sage/tumeric/garlic powder/salt/pepper) drizzled with none other than the uber classy red hot, celery, carrots, tomato, blue cheese, roasted garlic dressing on top of romaine.  Recommend, lol!  yeah, it was YUMMY…

DAY FOUR:

Taco Salad!  I love taco night around here.  It’s one of the very few meals that I prepare that will make all five of us happy, in our own way, without having to really modify anything while cooking/prepping it.  So while the boys enjoyed their taco creations, I like to make mine into, you guessed it, a salad 🙂  On a bed of iceberg lettuce (gasp!  I know I know no nutritional value, better choic…es available, but ya know, you can’t beat that cool crunch that goes so well with taco toppings!), mangos, avocados, red onion, tomatoes, mushrooms, cukes, orange peppers, jalapenos, then finished with ground taco meat (this was beef but obviously turkey or.chicken would be even better).  The dressing I usually like with this is a cilantro lime but when I took the cilantro bag out of the crisper….it dripped!  Bleh!    So, I immersion blender-ed some salsa, lime juice, salt and evoo…ole!   The perfect dressing was born 🙂  Or just salsa will do as a dressing too!

Well, I am ‘off duty’ in the dinner making dep’t tonight, both big guys aren’t here for dinner, little guys wanted pizza, soooo (fist pump!!!!!) I’m on my own!  Yeah!  Okay so , let me first off say, it is really important to eat what you really love, even if it doesn’t make sense….So I am having my fav, roasted green beans (French fries!), a simple salad of that great mix of baby chard, spinach… and baby Bok Choy that I have tossed some chopped tomatoes and avocado onto.  Drizzled with my balsamic dressing.  And, at press time, lol, I have not yet decided on my protein, hmmmmm, spicy seafood snack or smoked oysters?!  Decisions decisions, so classy, hey?!  So that’s it for tonight, sometimes it’s impressive, sometimes, it’s not! 😉

 

DAY SIX:

Lemon garlic roast chicken + roasted portobellos, peppers, onions & garlic + asparagus + diced fresh tomatoes + goat feta + creamy red wine vinegar dressing on a bed of baby spinach & chard = yum 🙂

 

DAY SEVEN:

The Antipasto Salad!   We had a dinner party tonight, appies, cold cuts & cheeses to make sandwiches, etc, so I had a salad of baby greens topped with tomato avocado salad (which you will see again very soon as it’s in heavy rotation around here!), prawns, roasted red peppers, mixed olives, ham and a few slices of peppercorn salami.  I also had a few coconut prawns & tortilla chips with fresh salsa that didn’t make it to the plate!  🙂

DAY EIGHT:

Pan roasted eggplant, garlic, onions & shrimp on baby spinach….I made it super spicy, extra extra chili flakes then drizzled with my balsamic dressing. Fast, easy, good. 🙂

DAY NINE:

We’re in full on cold battle mode around here, so I made some homemade chicken noodle soup for dinner tonight.  I made the stock from the roasted chicken we had the other night, so the broth was really rich with roasted garlic, turmeric and sage..  To make the meal both kid/man/and me friendly, I cook the noodles separate and the boys add the noodles to their own bowl at serving time.  For salad,  kept things really simple, and just roasted a head of cauliflower and some beautiful little rosebud beets which I piled onto that baby spinach &chard mix and topped with a creamy red wine dressing & tonnes of hot chili flakes!

 

DAY TEN:

Rib eye steak & shrimp on baby kale, baby spinach, carrots, cucumber & red pepper, drizzled with a ginger tamari apple cider dressing…(and then post-photo-op, I tossed the forgotten but crucial shredded fresh thai basil, mint & cilantro! ;)…felt very…substantial.

DAY ELEVEN:

Welllll….sometimes you have a SALAD…sometimes you drop the L and just have a SAAD, lol!  Richard was in charge of dinner tonight so yes, the pesto chicken with salami (yes, salami! man version of prosciutto?! so classy!) was tasty, but since he was having it on pasta with sauce, my salad was a serious afterthought, haha, soooo I plunked that chicken on top of the leftover spinach/kale/carrot/cuke/pepper salad from yesterday, dug to the far reaches of the fridge and found some creamy dressing, and called it dinner 🙂  It was good, but I like my salad to have a distinct theme, so it wasn’t great 😉

DAY TWELVE:

Blackened Cajun Pork Tenderloin on last summer’s homemade salsa (with fresh pineapple chunks & cilantro & red onion mixed in), Braised Apple Fennel Red Cabbage, and just a lil salad (haha! oh so full!) of asparagus, mushrooms, tomato and avocado on romaine, with that same old creamy red wine dressing!

DAY THIRTEEN:

Bean Sprout Egg Foo Young, red bell peppers, carrots, snow peas, mushrooms, avocado, tomato and sea weed on romaine with a ginger garlic tamari vinaigrette 🙂  Yeah!

DAY FOURTEEN:
Tomato avocado salad (tomatoes, avocados, green onion & my homemade balsamic dressing) on top of a bed of romaine with some garlic roasted chicken breast….

DAY FIFTEEN:
Kind of a spring-y fresh salad, iceberg (I know! I know! but sometimes it’s all about the cool crunch, right?!) lettuce, asparagus, roasted peppers, mangoes, creamy vinaigrette….

DAY SIXTEEN:
Noooo, not officially a salad….well, not a salad at all, lol, but some days are just like that….nursing a sick belly today, all I can manage is this, comfort food for me, some roasted green bean french fries and yam fries…with lots of red hot to dip in….and since the thought of any other food, especially meat or fish, makes me ill at even the thought,  lol, I plan to whip up my other fav, a gingerbread smoothie and hope to goodness I feel better tomorrow!

DAY SEVENTEEN:
Cauliflower Tabbouleh ~ food processer-ed until couscous size cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, cukes, green onion, mint & parsley with a garlic, lemon, evoo dressing + marinated fast fry steak topped with cilantro & basil.  All these delicious fresh herbs have me really looking forward to warm enough weather to get my deck herb garden going!

DAY EIGHTEEN:
Roasted Turkey + Cranberry Pumpkin Seed Coleslaw + Candied Spiced Carrot Fries…..Thanksgiving…in May?!  Well, I certainly have a lot to be thankful for, so it felt like the right thing to do 🙂   But no, really, no special occasion here today, turkey dinner actually is no biggie, it’s just like doing a roast chicken, but takes a little longer and you wind up having turkey meat ready to be recreated into another meal or two…or three!   It feels so efficient, which makes me very happy 🙂

DAY NINETEEN:
Turkey Caesar Salad + Pan Roasted Mushrooms….and yes, on green leaf lettuce not romaine…’cause nothing was worth attempting even the quickest trip into the grocery store tonight with these two little fellas!!!!

DAY TWENTY:
The Leftover Salad, Cauliflower Tabbouleh + Roasted Chicken Breast + Caesar Salad Dressing….a little random, yes, but some days you just want to keep it simple and not let good things in the fridge go to waste!  It worked 😉

DAY TWENTY ONE:
Lunchtime turkey salsa guacamole salad!  The guys had turkey wraps, but I would rather eat my wrap fried in coconut oil ’till crispy like a chip!  lol!  So that’s what I did 🙂

DAY TWENTY TWO:
Shrimp, Crab, Cuke, Colored Peppers, Corn, Pea and Avocado Salad with a Dill Apple Cider Vinegar/EVOO dressing on a bed of baby spinach 🙂  Ohhhh it was GOOD!  Very fresh and perfect end to this hot summery day!

And there it is!  The past 22 days of salads ~ keep checking in for the latest, greatest, and maybe sometimes, not so great, salad of the day!