Salads For A Full Meal: How I've Resisted Them & Now I'm Learning To Make Them! RECIPES!!:-)

My own pasta salad with vinegar,
sundried tomatoes, carrots, scallions &
rice pasta

So I haven't eaten salads consistently in years.  If I ate them at all I ate them out.  I rarely if ever made them at home!  I think because when I was dieting all those years (and failing again and again), salads were a staple.  Eating them reminds me of those unhappy days and so I avoided doing that often since entering recovery!

But then I became a vegan!  And by force of my dietary limitations (gluten-free, soy-free, sugar-free) I'm starting to slowly warm to them.  All of a sudden I'm discovering that you can actually eat salads for complete, nutrient dense meals!  And eating them makes you feel well nourished and energetic!  

The only thing is, I was kind of at a loss on how to create a diverse enough salad to keep me satiated AND provide me with a wide variety of nutrients.  

Enter the amazing vegan low-fat blog world.  

I am so grateful to all my favorite bloggers for teaching me how to do this!  I've been easing into this slowly but the more I read Wendy's (Healthy Girl's Kitchen) posts on how she and her husband eat a salad for dinner nightly, the more I'm becoming jazzed up to actually give this whole salad thing a try!  At first I didn't think it was practical--how was I going to find the time to prep all the raw veggies, etc, during the week!  And what was I going to put on it for dressing??  But then Wendy once again came to the rescue--just recently she posted that she makes all their salad dressings for the week once on the weekend and she also shared the helpful information that without the dressing, a prepped salad can last for several days!

So I'm going to start trying it!  For my food plan next week salad is going to factor in prominently!  My life is becoming more complicated with each passing day and I'm set to travel nearly all of March so I'm going to need some simpler foods to prepare while I'm on the road.  I'm thinking HELLLLOOOOOO Soups and Salads!  

Some great resources in the blogosphere that I have found to guide this new food category for me include:

Tons of AWESOME resources in Wendy's blog "Healthy Girl's Kitchen:"

HGK's No Oil
Caesar Salad Dressing

• The BIG List of No-Oil Salad Dressings: Wonderful dressing options from multiple sources!  Ranging from Dijon Pistachio Dressing to Chef AJ's Husband's Favorite No-oil Balsamic Vinaigrette!
• How To Build A Nutrient Dense Salad
• Time-Saving Tips To Make Salads AND A RECIPE: Roasted Kabocha Squash, Dried Fig and Walnut Salad
• My absolute favorite salad dressing I've made so far:  HGK's No-Oil Caesar Salad Dressing!  I alter it by not adding the soy sauce.  Instead I add 1/4 cup oat milk (original flavor) AND I add 2 full mini bottles of capers instead of just 2 Tbl!  I think I like the flavor of capers...hehe:-)

Fantastic posts on Susan Voisin's blog "Fat-Free Vegan Kitchen:"

• Right up my alley:  Tips for Eating Salads When You Don't Want To & RECIPE:  Hidden Cashew Ranch Dressing!
• RECIPES:  Salad recipes galore!!  Such a large list and so much variety!  Everything from Artichoke Pesto Pasta to Thai Salad in Pineapple BBQ Sauce!
• RECIPES:  Salad dressings: Once again a wide variety of types of dressings, ranging from Blueberry Vinaigrette to Guacamole Goddess Dressing

Other Amazing Salad RECIPES I like:

• My New Roots Roasted Sesame Winter Slaw
• Romaine & Avocado Salad with Cilantro-Lime Dressing from the Party Vegan Cookbook by Robin Robertson

A BIG thank you to all you bloggers out there who give us SUCH great salad recipes and "how-tos!"

Do you all eat many salads?  If so what are your favorite combos and do you have any favorite healthy dressings to recommend?  Would love to learn more from y'all!!

The medical information on this site is provided as an information resource only, and is not to be used or relied on for any diagnostic or treatment purposes. This information is not intended to be patient education, does not create any patient-physician relationship, and should not be used as a substitute for professional diagnosis and treatment.  Please consult your health care provider before making any healthcare decisions or for guidance about a specific medical condition. The Happy Rehab Doc expressly disclaims responsibility, and shall have no liability, for any damages, loss, injury, or liability whatsoever suffered as a result of your reliance on the information contained in this site.  By visiting this site you agree to the foregoing terms and conditions. 

Best of the Blogosphere From the Last Week!! Reverse Diabetes, Gratitude, Sleep & Salads!!! AND, the Recipe(s) of the Week!

Well, once again we have another week of outstanding posts in the free blogosphere (yay!).  I'm so grateful for my little "Pulse" app on my iPhone that I can use to keep up with all these posts on the fly!  


Here are my FAVORITE blog posts this week!  What were YOUR favorite posts?????!!! 


1) From the Healthy Librarian's Happy Healthy Long Life blog: Can You Really Reverse Diabetes with a Plant-Based Diet? 
 Fantastic video on Reversing Diabetes Mellitis with food programs--excellent explanation of diabetes & its effect on the body by Dr. Neal Barnard of the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine. AND how to reverse it!!  Its 37 mins long but SO worth it!! If you have family members who are pre-diabetic, diabetic or have a family history of diabetes than please forward this on to them:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqCxVEAUjd0.


2)  Really excellent post on sleep on the Disease Proof blog.  I think that sleep is absolutely critical to our health, well-being AND ability to be at a healthy weight!  (not to mention its effect on reducing Altzheimer's disease etc.)  I'm working on writing a blog post on sleep and am considering starting a special one month long "Sleep Challenge" for all of you!  What do you think?  Would you join me in something like that?  Either way, check this post out!


3) Two very exciting posts on salads!  I really love these posts because I've been avoiding having salads for so many years because for me, salad = diet food! But in the last month or so I've been inspired by both Wendy and Susan Voisin's posts on salads (as well as My New Root's Winter Slaw)!  Now I'm eating more salads and I love hearing how other people "build salads" and encourage themselves to eat them!

• Wendy from Healthy Girl's Kitchen did a guest post on the Engine 2 Diet blog!!  Its an excellent post on how to build a salad.  Check it out!  Extra bonus in this post:  links to her oil-free dressings (as you can see I'm a huge fan of her Caesar Salad No-Oil Dressing!)
• Susan Voisin from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen's blog gives "Tips on How to Eat Salad's When You Really Don't Want To!"  Extra bonus in the post:  an AWESOME recipe for vegan ranch dressing!

4)  Oh She Glow's "Gratitude Challenge".  I posted on Facebook about this but I HAD to mention it again because it is so powerful.  The idea of having a gratitude CONVERSATION every day with another person is such a huge boost to our mind-body health!  I hope you will join Angela (the blogger) on this! 

5)  Prescribing Yoga's post on "Trying to Stay Healthy":  Ok unless you are in medicine you might not appreciate this blog post, but I read it and laughed.  This brilliant young doc is doing such a great job of surviving intern year AND striving for health.  When you are an intern (your first year of being a doctor after medical school) the pace literally almost kills you.  Am I a fan of this method of training doctors--NO. Will I spend my life trying to change this system--YES.   

RECIPE OF THE WEEK:  I've got TWO this week!  

1)  Healthy Girl's Kitchen's Butternut Mac & Cheese (soooooo going on my food plan for this week!!)

2)........Ok so this next recipe may shock you guys, and for those of you who have issues with chocolate then stop reading my post now!  

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Ok, are all my chocolate addict folks gone?  Alright, Post Punk Kitchen posted a recipe for Raspberry Truffle Brownies that I think I will be able to easily adapt to be sugar-free!  Will add a bit more gluten-free flour and a bit more of the raspberry jam (grape juice sweetened) instead of the sugar!  I'll let you know how it turns out :-)


The medical information on this site is provided as an information resource only, and is not to be used or relied on for any diagnostic or treatment purposes. This information is not intended to be patient education, does not create any patient-physician relationship, and should not be used as a substitute for professional diagnosis and treatment.  Please consult your health care provider before making any healthcare decisions or for guidance about a specific medical condition. The Happy Rehab Doc expressly disclaims responsibility, and shall have no liability, for any damages, loss, injury, or liability whatsoever suffered as a result of your reliance on the information contained in this site.  By visiting this site you agree to the foregoing terms and conditions.