Salad of the Week

I haven't been very good at posting pictures of salads lately, or even posting many blog entries, but this week we had a salad worth sharing. I hadn't planned on sharing it, so I don't even have a picture - sorry!

This is from the Biggest Loser Cookbook - Thai Ground Chicken Salad

Dressing:

4 tbsp lime juice
1 1/2 tbsp fresh minced ginger
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
salt to taste
1 tbsp olive oil

Salad:

shredded romain lettuce
slivered red onion
slivered baby carrots
2 tbsp fresh mint leaves - chopped
2 tbsp fresh cilantro - chopped
2 tbsp roasted cashews - chopped
1 pound of extra lean ground chicken

Make dressing and set aside, I already doubled it for you, as they made it for only 1 serving. Easily I would make more - almost double what I listed above. The dressing was awesome, loved the ginger with the sweet chilli sauce, yummy!

Brown ground chicken, leave it in small chunks if you like or ground it right up into small bits. Pour some dressing on meat once cooked.

On a plate place torn lettuce, mix in cilantro and mint leaves. Add onions, carrots and cashews, drizzle with dressing and top with ground chicken.

The Quirk New Years!

For New Years this year I didn't know what to do, so I headed to the internet for some ideas and came up with this: Jay's mom and I made 8 or 9 bags and each bag had a clock face on it. When the real time matched the clock on the bag, we opened that bag and followed the instructions.
Our first clock bag had a disposable camera in it and we were told we each had to take 4 pictures on it. I haven't seen the camera since this night, so when I clean the house today I will be on the look out for it. Otherwise I will have to phone gramma and poppa to see if they accidentally have it in a coat pocket or something.

Next up, we had to blow up balloons and then keep them in the air, transfer them to one another through our legs and fun games like that. Devin just loves playing with balloons all together. At the end of the night we had to pop the balloons, which proved to be very challenging. Our next activity was to put on glow in the dark necklaces and dance around. We eventually made the necklaces into one large limbo, although most of us were not very flexible to make it underneath :)

Earlier in the day we made our own noisemakers, as we could not find any of ours. We used cut up wrapping paper tubes and filled them with lentils and beans (things I have good intentions of using, but haven't). One of our clock bags had Christmas Crackers in it and so we had a chance to do those as well. We were all SO thankful for the whistle Devin got in his!

At one point we filled up our glasses to toast to the New Year, say what we were grateful for and make a wish for 2010. After this we headed outside to light the sparklers and the kids love that part. The Green Goblin photo is out of order and I can't seem to move it. One of the bags had 3 villain targets and 2 cans of silly string, so we headed outside to defeat the bad guys. Silly string does not last that long, so although the kids liked it, it was over pretty quick.

Anyhow, I think that sums up our night. Of course we had good company with Jay's folks and good food with Sherry's Shrimp Surprise Dip, along with spinach dip, chicken wings and scallops wrapped in bacon. So between all our activities you could find us sipping on our wine or grazing at the appetizer table.

We rang in the New Year at 7:00 with the kids, did the sparklers, wound down and had them in bed for 8:00 - awesome! The grown ups played a few games and then watched Four Christmases, along with another episode of Glee (have to catch up you know). At midnight, which were surpisingly still up for, we opened the champagne and cheered in the New Year! The best part, was Jay's mom and dad insist the kids wake them up in the morning, so we didn't even have to get up at 7:00! Jay's parents however will likely sleep all the way home on the plane today, as they have been up early EVERY day with our two kids.

Hopefully more posts to come, still haven't caught you up on December or Christmas. School and real life starts again soon, so we will see what kind of time I have for posting.

Happy New Year Everyone!