Salads galore!

It’s summer and we are finally having nice temperature. I know I haven’t blogged in a while. It isn’t that I have not cooked; it is simply that nothing was quite worth of blogging about. I made very simple dished and repeated many of what has already been posted. I also ate in restaurant too much.

Anyhow, summer is great for salads and here are few pleasers. The Lemon pepper scallops on a bed of heirloom tomatoes, balsamic vinegar and goat cheese is particularly incredible.

The first one is my friend’s favourite summer salad, it’s rather simple, I thought it wouldn’t be enjoyable but lo and behold, I quite enjoyed the tangy lemon taste.

Neeley-Bee’s simple salad

- Spinach
- Cherry tomatoes
- Cucumber
- Juice of 1 lemon
- Coarse salt and pepper
- Hardboiled egg




Put the spinach in a bow, add cucumber, and add tomatoes, drizzle with the juice. Sprinkle with coarse salt and pepper. Add the egg. Enjoy.

Summer fruity-nutty salad with scallops

- Butter lettuce
- 1-2 green onions
- Strawberries
- ½ avocado
- 1 small container of mandarins, drained
- A big handful of walnuts
- Your favourite dressing (Mine is a creamy Walla-Walla dressing that I get from my husband each time he goes on bike race in the Washington state)
- Few scallop



First step is simple, put the lettuce and the chopped green onions in a bowl, add the vinaigrette and mix. Top with the chopped strawberries, avocado and add the mandarins. Cook the scallops the way you like them. For a summer salad like this one, I love grilled scallops as it cook in not fat and kind of counter balance my creamy dressing.

The Best:

Lemon-Pepper scallops on a bed of yellow and orange heirlooms tomatoes with crumbled goat cheese and balsamic drizzle.



Believe me, this is divine!

- 1 yellow tomato (I prefer to use the organic heirloom as the taste is sooo good)
- 1 orange tomato (again, organic... I think pink tomatoes would do well too)
- Quality balsamic vinegar
- Fleur de sel (I use fleur de Camargue)
- Few fresh string of chives
- 2 big teaspoon of goat cheese crumbles. (You may want to add more, it’s so yummy!)
- 3 big and fresh scallops
- Juice of ½ lime
- pepper



I’ll start with the scallops as few people do not know that they have to be patted dry before cooking. Anyhow, I pan fried them in butter and olive oil. Few second before putting on a plate to wait to be “placed on the salad”, I drizzled the lime juice on them and peppered them.
The salad is very simple; slice each tomato, put on a plate alternating colors. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle the goat cheese around. Place the three scallops in the middle; add the chives in the middle. Sprinkle with the fleur de sel. Eat. It is delicious!

Spinach and Strawberries salad

I have been taking pictures of my food, cooking and baking a little bit less than usual, but I still do. I figured I have been a really bad foodie blogger lately.

My husband is doing the Hawaii Ironman in October (vacation for me!!) and he told me he needs to lose some weight before. He has always struggled with his weight (so does most of his family) and I wasn’t a very good wife. Us French, loves to use butter, cheese, cream and extra rich ingredient. The obesity rate is a lot lower than in America and I think that even if our food is decadent, we just don’t eat as much. There might be an entire tray of delicious cupcakes in front of us, we’re only going to have one.

Anyhow, I’ve tried to include more vegetable in our alimentation (if at all possible, we’re already having ¾ veggies each night ¼ proteins.) As a side, for the remaining sunny day, I’ve made a simple, but delicious spinach salad.

Spinach and Strawberries salad

- Spinach
- 3-4 thinly sliced strawberries per serving
- A handful of shaved almonds
- Few crumbles of herbs goat cheese feta

Vinaigrette

- Lemon juice
- Drizzle of olive oil
- A crack of pepper (surprisingly, pepper goes really well with strawberries)



Put everything together and enjoy!

Strawberry Cupcakes

Who does not like strawberry cupcakes? Last Sunday, after I got home from groceries shopping, I realized that I had yet again bought too much strawberries. What a better way to ensure no waste than make delicious cupcakes? Besides, those little piece of heaven made me the most popular girl around the office.

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 large egg
6 ounces All Natural Vanilla Lowfat Yogurt (or any other fruit flavor of yogurt)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup fresh strawberries, diced

Frosting:
2 Tbsp. butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
2 fresh strawberries, about 2 Tbsp. mashed



1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin with paper liners. With an electric hand mixer, beat the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the egg, the yogurt and vanilla, blending until smooth.

2. Measure the dry ingredients into the bowl and blend, then fold in the strawberries.

3. Divide the mixture equally between the 12 paper-lined cupcake cups. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

4. Beat together butter, powdered sugar, and mashed strawberry in medium-size bowl until creamy and smooth. Chill frosting for 15 minutes or until thick. Frost cupcakes with a spatula. Keep cupcakes in the refrigerator loosely covered.

Healthy strawberry Oat muffins

I love a good muffin, but I don’t like the incredible calories that come with a great muffins.

In my quest to ensure my husband and I are not throwing away food (We now have a leftover night!) I was searching for a good strawberry recipe. You see, we had a great big package of strawberry and we ate most of them, but the last third was not looking appealing to the eye to eat straight from the package. Let me get something clear here, I did not cook with stale or molded food, they were just very ripe.
We are not pie type and we have more than enough juices and shakes so I did not want to blend it with other fruits and drink it. I was looking for muffins recipe, not the cupcake type but really healthy muffins- you know those that some time look weird but taste delicious?



Anyhow, I found the following on a parenting website. It couldn’t have been further away from my usual browsing as pretty much everyone I know, know that I am not the mother type.

Ingredients:

- 1 cup whole-wheat flour
- 1 cup of rolled oats
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon of ground cinnamon (I put a whole teaspoon)
- ½ teaspoon of salt
- 1 egg, beaten
- ½ cup of milk
- ¼ fat-free, sugar-free strawberry yogurt
- ½ cup brown sugar (used brown splenda)
- ½ pint chopped fresh strawberries (I probably put twice as much)

Grease 12 muffins cups. (I use paper cups but I also sprayed a bit of butter as they might stick to the paper. In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix the milk, egg and yogurt. Mix in the strawberries. Stir the strawberry mixture into oats just until it is evenly moist. Spoon the mix into prepared muffins cups. Bake 18 to 20 minutes.



Yummy!