My take on Kathryn Budig's "Persephone" salad: Recipe!

I was looking through Kathryn Budig's blog at her recipes! Most of them looked super yummy, and fairly easy to make (which is a plus for me). She also caused me to get a tremendous hankering for Oatmeal Creme Pies but I didn't have all of the ingredients at all for that and improvised.

I wanted a light dinner, and I also had an avocado that was PERFECT and absolutely had to be used tonight. Because those things can go bad so freaking fast and I was not about to chance it.

So onto my Faux Persephone salad. Kathryn called it a Persephone salad because in the mythology, Hades uses a pomegranate to lure Persephone to the underworld and her recipe called for poms. I'm not a fan of them so I made some substitutions to suit both what I had, and what I liked.

Salad ingredients:

Greens! I used about 2 cups of mixed greens
Pickled red onions (recipe below)
One avocado, cubed (I put some lime juice on it to keep it from browning and because I love lime juice!)
1-2 tbsp Dried cranberries
1 tsp Sea salt
Garlic-I used some dried, spicy garlic for mine


Dressing:

1 tbsp Balsamic vinaigrette
1 tbsp Olive oil
pinch of Kosher salt
Minced green onions, about two stalks
Shake it all up, or stir, pour on last

Pickled red onions:
One red onion, diced however you prefer
Enough Apple Cider Vinegar to cover them
a teaspoon of sugar
Set into a container, shake it up, and leave in the fridge until you're ready to use it

This was seriously one of the best salads I've ever made. I'm not a huge dressing person, which is why the amounts are so small, so feel free to double or triple based on how much you like.

Since I know a lot of people like to know the caloric values, here you go.
Calories 649
Fat 59 (that avocado, makes up about half of it alone)
Protein 6
Carbohydrates 28

I would honestly eat this even without the avocado in it, especially since I don't always have them in the house. That would drop it down about 400 calories if that worries you.

Skinnytaste recipes review

I was sent this book to try out from a book review blogging program. I got to pick the book and I had been anxious to try this one out. We picked out a few recipes that we all agreed on (yes even the 12 year old). We tried a mixture of a few for a few different dinners and were pleasantly surprised with almost all of them! I was actually most surprised of my kiddo's reactions and would highly recommend this cookbook.

Find the book here:
The Skinnytaste Cookbook: Light on Calories, Big on Flavor

I was able to find a variation of almost all of the recipes we tried on her website as well so here you go!

Roasted Acorn Squash with brown sugar
Pleasantly surprised. The child SWORE he'd hate it. Tried and he was in love with it. He said it tasted like candy. We all enjoyed it immensely and it was soooo easy. The book used maple syrup instead of brown sugar but other than that, not much of a difference.

Roasted Asparagus
The book had a slightly different recipe, adding lemon, which is what we did. We love roasted asparagus.

There are also some sesame green beans from her book that didn't have a comparable replacement on the site. They were delicious!

Creamy Cauliflower
We did use cream cheese instead. It was a recipe we had already been using from her site but we love it. I would eat potatoes with every meal but the other half won't let me so he made some substitutions!

Baked Zucchini Sticks
The kiddo has asked for these almost every day since we made these. We've made them twice and he's in love with them.

Oven Fried Chicken
Similar to the book recipe, we added some extra spices and the book had corn flakes instead of bran flakes and a different initial coating. We added a bit more cayenne, soaked the chicken overnight in buttermilk (per the book) and even my Kentucky born boyfriend approved of it!

As a family, we all really enjoyed these recipes. The boyfriend and I loved the oven fried chicken the most, with the acorn squash being a close second; the child was all about the zucchini fries. There are several other recipes we have marked as a family to try and I can't wait.

I think my favorite thing is that there weren't any odd ingredients. Everything can be found at a normal grocery store and easy to prepare. 

All opinions are my own. I was given the book in exchange for my honest review and opinion but honestly, like most books I review, I chose this one because I already interested in it. 

Efforts and recipe requests

The last week or so my efforts have not been the greatest. With my son's birthday, and Halloween, lots of school events for him and my boyfriend being in town for two weeks (LDR's are difficult), I was preoccupied. I couldn't figure out why I was having so much trouble focusing until I let myself rest for a bit and realized I have the beginnings of a sinus infection/cold. This has made things difficult, but I am determined! Tomorrow, Wednesday, I am heading to the gym for an upper body workout and some cardio. I will also be working on meal planning, looking into new recipes and grocery shopping. If anyone has any clean eating recipe recommendations, please pass them along! I'll start making recipe posts this week or next as well with some of my favorites.