Mmm salads!

First of all, I LOVE salads. Sometimes they are a bit healthier than others, but usually the more salads I eat the more weight I loose. Sounds like a game plan!
This is my salad tonight.



It is full of vegetables. I steamed a bag of mixed vegetables and added them on top of my organic spinach. Why spinach you ask? Well, it is my own preference because spinach is highly treated with pesticides and I'll like to keep those yucky chemicals out of my dinner. I also like using spinach instead of lettuce because spinach has folate which is beneficial against birth defects.

Here is a link to the dirty dozen. When possible (when our budget allows for it) I purchase these food as organic.

Back to the salad-there is also a red bell pepper (also organic), jicama, and some cucumber.

To include some protein in the mix I threw on a boiled egg and some bacon. I don't like bacon normally, but I enjoy it on my salads. One good nutritional tidbit about bacon is that it contains choline which is important for pregnant ladies.

Here lately I've been digging blue cheese dressing, and I found a reduced fat version from Wishbone. Yum yum!

Home!

Finally back home!  We went out of town for almost a week for a family member's funeral and although I enjoyed seeing the family, I'm glad I'm home.  Glad I'm back to my own kitchen!  We ate out almost every meal for 4 days.  That's 12 restaurant trips! Ughh..  And probably 12,000 calories.  It is really difficult to eat healthy while eating out, and even harder when others are eating unhealthy too.  I did make a few healthy decisions like baked and grilled chicken over fried chicken, and I passed the bacon and opted for BBQ beef. 

One restaurant that I haven't been to in a while what Jucy's Burger in Longview Texas.  It was tasty!  I didn't eat a burger because I don't like ground meat, but my husband and mother-in-law enjoyed theirs while the kids and I chomped on chicken.  The fries were from scratch, and although a little greasy, they had a good flavor. 

Another restaurant we had food from was Bodacious BBQ, also in Longview.  We've been there a few times over the years that I've known my husband and I'm not disapointed.  It's no Rudy's BBQ here in Austin, but it is mighty tasty.  I ate BBQ brisket 3 days in a row its that good!

The funeral service was beautiful, and I know it will take all of us a while to come to terms with what has happened, but I feel getting the family together was beficial for us all.