Main dish salads (Sumptuous Saturdays)

Okay, it's time for another Sumptuous Saturday food discussion. This is a little harder than usual today because we really slacked on the healthy eating front. Breakfast was Potatoes O'Brien and scrambled eggs, and then we had a really late lunch/early dinner of cheese pizza. Yep. Junk-liscious day.

On the other hand, tomorrow we'll be back to our normal eating habits. Sundays are our grocery shopping day, so we stock up on all our favorite nibbles. What is it about having fresh food in the house to stoke your cooking fire?

Anyway, tomorrow will probably be a main dish salad kind of dinner, and I think we'll be revisiting the Bok Choy Chik'n Salad. It's easy, because I use faux chicken nuggets as a protein source and the "dressing" is easy to whip together out of *gasp* the Oriental top ramen seasoning packet, a dash of sesame oil and lots of apple cider vinegar. I like to throw in plenty of little orange pieces to round out the flavors. It will still be junk food, but when the junk food makes us demolish an entire bunch of bok choy (I also add spinach or romaine to bulk it up a little) in one meal, I don't feel so bad about it.

In fact, we've been eating a lot of main dish salads that use junk food to dress up our greens. A couple of weeks ago, I made falafel balls (baked, not fried!) to top a spinach & romaine salad tossed with blue cheese and ranch dressing (dilute the ranch dressing with vinegar or fat-free buttermilk, and it stops being such a fat nightmare without compromising the delicious junk-food-y flavor). And Taco Salad with soy "ground beef" and tostada shells doesn't seem so bad when you pile on the spinach, cabbage and romaine--and heaps of fresh salsa.

So I guess you've found me out. I looooove salads for dinner. They just need to be laced with delicious junk food.