Spoonful of Sugar Free

Registered Dietitian

salad

Dijon Dressing

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Well, it looks like I might start posting everyday now! I really do love to write on my blog, but I cannot write a long post everyday. Somedays I will just pop in and share a picture, some food, or a random thought that pops into my mine. Hehe…Please bear with me… I am out of town (again!), so I don’t know if I will start the everyday postings until I get back, but for now I will share with you my favorite salad dressing I have been using lately.

Dijon Salad Dressing

~This dressing is super easy and can be made in under a minute! Feel free to adjust amounts as needed. Dairy-free, gluten-free, grain-free, nut-free, soy free, vegan, and, of course, sugar-free! 

Serves 1

Ingredients

  • 1 Tablespoon Dijon Mustard
  • 1 Tablespoon Balsamic Vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon olive oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
  • salt and pepper, to taste
Mix and serve over your favorite salad.

Thought-provoking, mind-prodding question of the day:

What is your favorite salad dressing?

I am usually just an oil and vinegar lady. Give me some for my salad, and I will be fine! Except yesterday I ordered a salad from Subway, and they forgot to put the dressing on my salad! Dry salad? Gross! Later, I found some mustard and drizzled that on it…

Heart Stopping Chicken Salad

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Your heart won’t stop because of this delicious, healthy chicken salad recipe, but it might stop because it is so darn delicious! It tastes just like regular chicken salad (if not better), and it’s healthy.

Chicken Salad

Healthified Chicken Salad

~While usual chicken salad recipes contain bad-for-your-heart mayonnaise, this recipe has good-for-your-heart avocado! Gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, soy-free, and, of course, sugar-free!

Serves 2, but feel free to halve, double, or triple recipe.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup cooked, diced or shredded chicken
  • 1 stalk celery
  • 1/2 apple
  • 1 carrot
  • 1 green onion/scallion
  • 1/2 avocado
  • 1 Tablespoon dijon mustard
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 teaspoon capers
  • optional: 1 tsp fresh dill

Chop the carrots, celery, and apple and mix with the chicken and capers. Then, squish the avocado until smooth and mix into the veggie-chicken mix. Add the mustard, lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well and serve over a bed of spinach or on your favorite whole grain bread.

Health Benefits

  • Avocado: Avocados are high in monounsaturated fats that help the skin stay clear and protect your brain. It is also a good source of the carotenoid lutein. Lutein protects against macular degeneration and cataracts, two disabling age-related eye diseases. Avocado, like olive oil, is high in oleic acid, which has been shown to prevent breast cancer in numerous studies.
  • Chicken: Chicken’s high protein content can help protect against bone loss and help build muscles. It is also a very good source of the cancer-protective B vitamin, niacin. Components of DNA require niacin, and a deficiency of niacin (as well as other B-complex vitamins) has been directly linked to genetic (DNA) damage. The B vitamins in chicken can help prevent Alzheimer’s, boost energy, and help your heart stay strong!
  • Apples: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away!”  One large apple contains 30% of your daily value of fiber, and it helps aid in digestion and those suffering from constipation. A flavanoid called phloridzin that is found only in apples may protect post-menopausal women from osteoporosis and may also increase bone density. Boron, another ingredient in apples, also strengthens bones. It can also help lower cholesterol.

Beach

Thought-provoking, mind-prodding question of the day:

Describe your perfect picnic. Is it on the beach? By the lake? Under a tree? What kind of food would you serve? What kinds of activities would you do?

My perfect picnic would be on top of a grassy hill underneath a huge tree. 75* and sunny with blue skies. I would sit right in the grass on a huge blanket, and drink sparkling water. My picnic basket would be full of traditional picnic food: chicken salad, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables and hummus, and grain-free fudge brownies for dessert!

Easy Ginger-Miso Dressing

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I have been hoarding this recipe for a long time…

It is my absolute favorite homemade salad dressing! I have been searching and searching for my favorite salad dressing served at Japanese Steakhouses, and when I made this dressing I realized it tastes just like it!

Ginger-Miso Dressing served atop fresh kale, red peppers, grapes, cucumbers, and avocado

Easy Ginger Miso Dressing

~This salad dressing is gluten-free, nut-free, dairy-free, vegan, gluten-free, and, of course, sugar-free!

Serves 1

  • 1 Tablespoon minced ginger
  • 1 teaspoon miso
  • teaspoons of lemon juice or water

In a small bowl, mix the ginger and miso together. Add a teaspoon of lemon juice (or water), and whisk. Add more lemon juice (or water) in teaspoonfuls until desired consistency is reached.

I like my dressing thick, but thin enough to pour. Feel free to double or triple the dressing as needed depending on the size of your salad and the number of people you are serving this to.

Health Benefits

  • Ginger: Ginger is best known for helping digestion. Ginger can help when you feel nauseated or cramped. It can also minimize the symptoms from colds, allergies, and respiratory conditions.
  • Miso: Made from soy, miso is high in iron, copper, manganese, vitamin B12, and vitamin K. It naturally contains probiotics that help the digestive system. Studies have also shown that consuming miso reduces the chances of getting Breast Cancer for women.
  • Lemon Juice: Helps stimulate and aid in the digestive system, and helps to get rid of toxins in the body. It can help the skin stay healthy and clean while decreasing the amount of phlegm in the body.

Compare all of these wonderful benefits of the Ginger-Miso dressing America’s most popular salad dressing, Ranch.

2 tablespoons of Hidden Valley ranch dressing has 140 calories, 14g fat, 2.5g saturated fat, 260mg sodium, 1g sugar, 1g protein.

Ingredients: Vegetable oil, egg yolk, sugar, salt, buttermilk, spices, garlic, onion, vinegar, phosphoric acid, xanthan gum, modified food starch, MSG, artificial flavors, disodium phosphate, sorbic acid, calcium disodium EDTA, disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate.

Not only is the ranch made mostly of oil, but it is full of unhealthy preservatives. It also contains harmful MSG. I think I’ll stick to my ginger-miso recipe.

Thought-provoking, mind-prodding question of the day:

What is your favorite salad dressing? Do you like making your own, or is there a certain store-bought variety you like?

Usually I just drizzle some balsamic vinegar and olive oil on my salads, but I fell in love with this Ginger-Miso recipe as soon as I created it!

#10 Friends by Recipes: Adobo-Rubbed Pork

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Welcome to day 10 of my Friends by Recipes Challenge! Debpieper sent me this wonderful recipe for Adobo-Rubbed Pork from Clean Eating Mag.

 


This was extremely easy to make, and I love the addition of the black bean pico de gallo. I am so sorry, but I did not get a picture of mine this time! Thursdays are my busy days, and I made everything in the morning so that it would be ready for me to throw in the oven when I got home.

Little did I know that I would be having a 5 hour tennis camp workout with a 15 minute break thrown in instead of 2 hours, 1 hour break, and another 2 hours of tennis. You could say that I was hungry and exhausted.

As soon as I got home, I threw the pork in the oven, took a shower, put some pj’s on, and devoured the meal without taking pictures! Oh well, you can see what I ate on these pictures provided by Clean Eating Mag:

 

Thanks, Deb, for giving me this nourishing, tasty meal when I needed it!

Thought-provoking, mind-prodding question of the day:

What is the most tiring workout you’ve ever done? One that you just felt so tired from that you just wanted to crash? I always think that sledding is so exhausting. It takes 5 minutes to clamber up a snow-filled, steep hill, and then only 15 seconds to sled down it! What would snowy, bitterly-cold winters be like without sledding, though?

 

Summer Nights with Cucumber Salad

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Hello Hello! First off, I want to remind you all to send in a picture, or blog about your favorite food for the Food Lovin’ Post! Don’t Forget! August is almost coming to an end, and I know that every single one of you have a favorite food!!

Last night in Iowa was the most beautiful night I’ve been in for a while! It was about 75 degrees, and there was a nice, cool breeze in the air. There was some Wild Alaskan Salmon on the grill, and I made some cool and refreshing summer salads with the organic vegetables a friend kindly gave me the night before.

The smell of the night calmed me as I sat on the front porch with my family eating supper.

Breathe in…Breathe out…. Smell the night air, and enjoy the food that the earth has kindly given up for me. And enjoy my family as I relax, talk, and eat.

I made a perfect summer salad out of the cucumbers and cherry tomatoes my friend gave me. This was my Grandma’s recipe, and was a favorite to make. My dad was also extremely happy when he saw I was making this salad. It is very cleansing because the cucumbers soak in vinegar. I remember drinking the left over juices with my grandma, and laughing as we watched each other cringe as the vinegar burned our throats.

Cleansing Cucumber Salad

~This cucumber salad is great for a summer picnic, and good for those who have sore throats. The recipe is raw, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, and of course, sugar-free!

Ingredients

  • 2 medium cucumbers (can be easily adjusted to serve more or fewer people)
  • 15 (more or less) cherry tomatoes
  • Yellow onion
  • ¼ cup vinegar
  • ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
  • 1-2 Tablespoons of Balsamic vinegar
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon black pepper

First, thoroughly wash all of the vegetables, and scrub the skins of the cucumber. Then, thinly slice the cucumbers into rounds. Next, thinly slice about 2 or 3 rounds of the yellow onion, and cut the rounds into quarters. Then, place the sliced vegetables and cherry tomatoes into the serving bowl. Add the vinegars and salt and pepper, and use your hands or salad tongs to thoroughly coat the vegetables (make sure you don’t add too much balsamic vinegar because it doesn’t look as good to have brown cucumbers!).

Either serve the salad right away, or cover with plastic wrap and let it sit a couple hours before serving, The loner it sits in the vinegar, the more tangy the cucumbers will become; so if you don’t love a strong vinegar taste, don’t let it sit too long.

Dinner Idea for this salad:

Yes, this was my dinner I enjoyed on the front porch. The cucumber salad was served with grilled salmon topped with capers, wild rice, and another spinach salad I made the night before.

Thought-provoking, mind-prodding question of the day:

What is your favorite summer-time meal? What about you most ideal meal-time setting? On the beach, in the mountains?