Leftovers to Lunch - Chef Salad!

 

Whether you have some leftover chicken (or turkey) breast or ham, leftover shredded cheese from nachos or Taco Night, or deli meat and cheese scraps from making Cracker Stackers or other cute bento shapes, a Chef Salad is a great way to use them up! Even if you're eating them the very next day, adding them to a salad turns them into something completely different, so your lunch doesn't feel like the same thing you just ate!

Thursday, 5/9/13 - I still had some flowery ham cut-outs left over from the Family Night potluck at E's preschool, so decided to try incorporating them into a salad to use them up before they went bad.

Organic kiwi, Pink Dip w/gluten-free pretzel sticks; organic salad w/lettuce, cabbage,
raddichio, broccoli, carrot scraps, sunflower seeds, hemp hearts,
Annie's Goddess dressing, leftover uncured ham, cheese shreds

 

Since I still had plenty of Pink Dip left from making wraps for our Teacher Appreciation lunches, I packed some in a silicone star cup to separate it from the pretzels for dipping. I used green garlic instead of regular, which has a stronger flavor raw, apparently. And one garlic scape is much larger than one clove, but I had thought it had a milder flavor so used 2 or 3 scapes, which ended in a much bigger garlic punch in the mouth! It was great with the ham in the wraps (if you like garlic,) but neither girl liked it. So it was up to Mama to finish it off!

Friday, 5/10/13 - Normally we find a local gluten-free restaurant for lunch after Z's OT appointment, but I think we were headed to Nana's this day, so I packed lunches for everyone. It's an hour drive, so no time to waste stopping for food!

Organic kiwi, Pink Dip w/gluten-free pretzel sticks; organic salad w/lettuce, cabbage, raddichio, broccoli, carrot scraps, sunflower seeds, hemp hearts, Annie's Goddess dressing, leftover turkey, Swiss, and cheddar chunks

 

Pretty much the same lunch as the day before, only instead of leftover bento bits and scraps, I used some chunks that Hubby had brought home from work. They get lunch catered every day, and happened to have had a bunch of cubed turkey and cheese left over from their DIY Chef Salads the day before. Swiss is not one of my favorites, but I'm not a fan of cheese in general. Except on pizza and nachos! But I've never been fond of food that is designed to mold or grow bacteria before serving. Cheese almost always tastes "off" to me, unless it's cooked. Alcohol too. But the barfy dressing masked it well. (See bottom of post for dressing review!)

Monday, 5/13/13 - Since I already had the leftover chunks of turkey and Swiss out for the girls' lunches, I decided to go for another Chef Salad for myself.

Wholly Guacamole, GF pretzel sticks and organic corn chip dippers; organic salad w/lettuce, cabbage, raddichio, broccoli, carrot scraps, sunflower seeds, hemp hearts, Annie's Goddess dressing, leftover turkey and Swiss chunks

I also had left over guacamole from the Teacher Appreciation lunches to use up, and decided to change things up by adding Trader Joe's organic corn dippers to the pretzels for dipping. I'm a rebel like that.

Dressing Up

My usual dressing is raspberry vinaigrette for salads, or Ranch for dipping veggies. But for these savory salads, I didn't want a sweet dressing, and Ranch is thicker, so it tends to clump and you need to use more to cover a whole salad. The Annie's dressings had been Buy 1 Get 1 Free that week, so when I grabbed a bottle of their raspberry dressing to try, I decided to try the Goddess dressing too. (I like Marie's raspberry vinaigrette in the refrigerated section in Produce best, but I'm looking for a yummy even-healthier version, hopefully organic. So far, no luck.)
I was not a fan of either. My store only had "lite" versions of both, and while the raspberry was tastier than Trader Joe's version, it was still not anywhere near Marie's in yumminess. And the Goddess dressing was just nasty. It was thick and clotted looking, and spread much worse than Ranch dressing. And I wasn't a fan of the flavor either. But the consistency was the big turn-off for me. If it were organic and had healthy versions of each ingredient, I could stand the flavor. But pouring it out of the bottle was like pouring really old milk out into the sink. It's hard to enjoy your lunch when you have to fight not to gag while making it! Blech!

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