Make Your Own Salad Bar

 

I have always been partial to a really good salad bar if offered at a restaurant.  I love nothing more than to top a nice bed of greens with a plethora of lovely toppings.  I can make my entire meal out of a good salad and be very satisfied with that.  With my endeavor this year to bulk up my fruit and vegetable intake as well as to enjoy a really clean diet I have taken to creating my own salad bar at home.

 

Beginning with a clean head of romaine or iceberg lettuce I chop that up and place it into a bowl that I have that is the perfect size and also has a lid.  Then I chop up a bit of green and purple cabbage and add that to the bowl.  Next I will grate an entire carrot and add that to the bowl.  Once tossed together the base of my salad, the greens, are ready.  I also like to pick up a container of spring mix lettuces with spinach and add that to my salad greens in addition to what I’ve assembled in the bowl.

 

Next come the toppings and I try to always have at least three items on top of each bed of greens, but more often than not I have far more.  I love pickled beets, sliced mushrooms, olives – both black and green, pickles, grape tomatoes, sliced peppers, diced avocado, raisins or dried cranberries, chopped apple, orange segments, just to name a few.  Each week I will assemble a nice variety of items that I put into individual Pyrex bowls with lids.

 

Additionally, especially if I am making the salad the main entrée, I need to have proteins.  Dice ham, crumbled bacon, grilled chicken, taco meat are all really good options.  I also like dice hard boiled eggs, nuts, seeds and cheeses.  There are so many options that it makes for a lot of variety and keeps things interesting.

 

Once I’ve gone to all the work of creating my big bowl of greens and all of the delicious and wholesome toppings I drizzle it with my own homemade salad dressing.  With all of the junk in the commercially processed dressings these days it just seems counterproductive to add one of those to all the good ingredients on my salad so I make my own.

 

Another advantage to having my own salad bar ready in the refrigerator I am able to come home after a busy day and quickly put together a salad for supper.  If company shows up I can also pull everything out onto the counter and allow them to easily make their own.  Paired with a hot bowl of homemade soup and a homemade whole wheat dinner roll and, in my opinion, you have total perfection!

 

What is your favorite combination in a salad?  How about your favorite salad dressing?  Do you ever make up a salad bar like this?

 

My Tireless Retirement – Week 155

 

Hello everyone!  Last Friday was a lot of fun for me.  I worked all day at the senior center and after work I met five of my coworkers for dinner and then we went to see Drunk Shakespeare at Boise Little Theater.  It was so much fun, absolutely hilarious and I would strongly recommend it if you ever get the chance, but only if you like to laugh a lot.  If not, then skip it.

 

Asparagus is back in season!

This past weekend I enjoyed quite a bit of relaxation and downtime.  I spent time with my houseguests, celebrated a friend’s birthday, ate some good food, drank some good wine and just simply enjoyed myself.  I even sneaked in a bit of crafting.  It made for a simply delightful weekend.

 

I headed off to work Monday afternoon, St. Patrick’s Day, and enjoyed myself there as well.  My only day off during the week ended up being on Wednesday and I definitely made the most of it.  I ran a couple errands, one of which included a very long wait to pick up new family members.  Peeps!

 

Three sweet little fuzz balls

On Thursday I worked a few hours to cover for a co-worker that wanted to take the afternoon off and spend some time with her son.  Bravo!  I didn’t mind giving up my day off at all to help her out.  I spent the rest of the day, before work and after, just hanging out at home and being a peep mommy.  They are so cute!  Best way ever to complete another satisfying week in retirement.  How was your week?!

 

Making Amazing Meals From The Pantry - #3 (What's This?)

 

Amazingly, I’m still pretty much on a pantry challenge again this month as I am using up all of the items I squirreled in the kitchen freezer at the holidays and since.  It has been a lot of reheat and eat meals as well as a boatload of fresh salads and frozen vegetables.  Not too terribly exciting.

 

But, what I have been doing a lot this month is preserving a variety of different foods for the deep freezer.  I had picked up a four pound bag of whole organic strawberries when I was at Costco.  I divided the strawberries into smaller packages and vacuum sealed them for the deep freezer for long term food storage (LTFS) keeping some for the kitchen freezer to use now.

 

Sharp Cheddar & Monterey Jack

Next I sat down at the dining room table and grated two 2# blocks of cheese I had bought at the end of last year.  They had best buy dates far into April so I wasn’t in a big hurry, obviously, to get that chore done.  But now I have it all grated and in bags for the bin I keep for cheese in the kitchen freezer.

 

I realized I wasn’t going to eat them before they would start to ice up and freezer burn so I took one of the bags of frozen fries I had made up and vacuum sealed it to put in the deep freezer.  The other one is in the kitchen freezer and will be used in some upcoming meals.

 

After that I took three bell peppers I had found on the markdown produce rack one day at the supermarket and sliced them up along with an onion I had rolling around in the crisper drawer in my refrigerator.  I divided them in half and vacuum sealed two packages and added them to the deep freezer.  I plan to use them in future fajitas or stir fry meals.

 

I had picked up a package of green onions at Trader Joes for the sole purpose of slicing and vacuum sealing them for the deep freezer.  I then took the root ends and placed them in a jar of water to re-grow.  After ten days I had enough growth to trim and slice up to make up another half bag which I put in the kitchen freezer.  I will either use them now or add to them until I have a full bag to vacuum seal.

 

At the beginning of the month I mentioned I had scored a great deal on sirloin steaks which I divided into individual portions as well as sliced and cut up some of the steaks to go in other recipes.  I then vacuum sealed those to go into the deep freezer as well.

 

I took out a bag of flour I had placed into a Ziploc bag and vacuum sealed it instead then put it back in the deep freezer.  This will help to keep the flour fresher and make it far less likely for it to absorb any flavors or odors from other foods I have in there.

 

The miscellaneous shelf in the deep freezer is starting fill up

Butter was on sale at Albertson’s so I picked up two pounds, which was the limit, and after vacuum sealing them in a large bag I added them to the freezer along with the cream cubes I had made in ice cube trays and vacuum sealed.  The butter and cream is the first I’ve added to the deep freezer for LTFS.

 

Newer fruits & vegetables coming in now get vacuum sealed

Older vegetables in the deep freezer I plan to use up here shortly 

As you know I like to use my kitchen freezer for open packages and items I am using in the next few months while the deep freezer holds the stock up items I plan to consume further down the line.  I still have plenty of frozen fruit and vegetables, loads of grated cheeses, some bread products and some meat in the kitchen freezer to work my way through.  While I work on that I can focus more on LTFS and filling up the shelves in my cute little deep freezer.

 

Open packages of fruits & vegetables in the kitchen freezer

Meats & cheeses

Meal prepped items on the bottom
Slowly, but surely, I'm making progress!

So while I didn’t do any big meal preparations this past month to share with you I did manage to do a lot of freezer food preparation in addition to all the home canning I have done so far this year.  Also, I am definitely making progress on the using up older items so they do not freezer burn and go to waste.  I will continue with my pantry challenge through the end of the month and then see where I sit in April.  Looking at what I still have in my freezer I may have to work on it some more in April.  Coming off of a year of an extremely low grocery budget in 2024 I’d say, “What a problem to have!” 😊

 

A Little Subaru Update

 

I was pretty happy when we finally got a cluster of warm dry days so I could spend some time outdoors soaking up some sunshine and doing my favorite thing ever – working on projects!  As many of you know I recently acquired a 2011 Subaru Outback back in January of this year.  I have been enjoying the heck out of that little car, especially as I knew when I bought it that there would be a few things for me to work on.  Not the least of which was a pair of dents, one on each front fender compliments of the previous owner.  The front bumper also had a nice paint scrape and from what I can tell each of these happened on three separate occasions.  Nonetheless, I was up for the challenge to make it better.

 

Before

After

Over a period of a couple of weeks I went out with my tools and supplies and patiently worked to pop out the dents.  I wasn’t going for perfection, I was only going for better.  At this time I don’t want to do any Bondo and paint work, just work out the dents so they are far less noticeable.  Once I’d achieved that on the driver’s side a little bit of rubbing compound and some wax and I was pretty happy with how that turned out.  With the passenger side I got it most of the way out until I ran out of time and good weather.  It is still a work in progress.

 

Before

After - still a work in progress

At the same time I also managed to get the oil changed, the fluids all topped up and the engine cleaned.  It was super dirty under the hood but once I’d worked my magic it looked like new.  I also noticed the wiper fluid container had lost its attachment point and was flopping around inside the engine bay.  No worries.  Nothing a bolt and a wing nut from my can of miscellaneous screws couldn’t take care of.

 

Before

During

After

Another issue was that the headlights were really yellowed and fogged over.  They were a little far gone, but I was able to sand them and clear coat them and make them much, much clearer.  Are they perfect?  Not even a little bit, but they are a whole lot better and should be fine until I can budget for replacement headlights.

 

Drivers side headlight

One very dirty engine bay

A new Interstate battery is on the list

The front bumper on the passenger side had a good sized paint scuff on it.  I used acetone on a Q-tip and carefully removed the white paint from the silver bumper.  You have to be careful not to go crazy and remove the car’s clear coat or its paint so patience and care are important here.  Once I had removed all the white paint scuffs I went over it with rubbing compound and then followed it with some wax and it looks a whole lot better.

 

Plenty of nature

And after!

So very satisfying 😎

I am still waiting for much warmer weather before I go inside with the carpet cleaner and give the carpet and upholstery a good cleaning.  I can hardly wait until I can finally get that done.  It will make the interior smell so much better.  In the meantime I will continue to work on what I can, weather permitting and continue to be happy with the progress I have made so far.