"Recipe" Baby Spinach/Thousand Island Dressing/Goat Cheese Crumbles

+ + = YUMMY!

There really isn't anything bad that I can say about the Trader Joe's Les Salades du Midi Baby Spinach, except for the fact that I don't really understand the connection to the fancy French. It's really cheap ($1.99) and very tasty and keeps in the fridge for almost two weeks which is usally one week longer than any other lettuce I've ever had.

I think the greated thing about the baby spinach is its versatility. I can use it as the base of a salad, I can add some arugula to it (I've been doing that lately), I can eat it all by itself with just dressing (which happens more often than not since I never seem to have fresh vegis around to toss in a salad but I'm usually in the mood for a salad), I can saute it in a little olive oil and add some cooked corn or tomatoes. It's really become one of my staples, because a little spinach is a great healthy snack and it never seems to go bad in my fridge. Which is kind of creepy but maybe it's also a sign that Paul and I are actually eating lots and lots of spinach like we should be doing.

My current favorite Baby Spinach "recipe" is Baby Spinach, Thousand Island Dressing and Goat Cheese crumbles. A little cheese really does make all the difference in salad, especially when it is delicious and good for you, like goat cheese.

And in case you are wondering, recipe is in quotation marks because I don't think it really technically counts as a recipe if all you are doing is telling people to put things together. But since that is going to be the extent of the cooking advice on this blog, I thought that I need to have an official sounding word like recipe.

Cost:
- $1.99 for 12oz of Baby Spinach
- $1.99 for 4oz of Crumbled Goat Cheese
- $1.69 for 8fl oz of Thousand Island Dressing (I need to double check on that one, seems too good to be true)

Nutrition:
The serving below is enough for two people so the total calories is about 100 per serving.
- 20 calories for 4 cups of Baby Spinach (2 g of dietary fiber)
- 80 calories for 1 oz of Goat Cheese (5g of fat, 3g of protein)
- 110 calories for 2 Tbsp of Thousand Island Dressing (11 g of fat, lordie that's why it tastes so good)

On the back:
Sadly none of the three items has anything funny or cute or interesting on the back, unless of course you cound the "Nothing added, no preservatives, pre-washed, final rinse recommended" on the back of the Baby Spinach.

Although that pre-washed thing is really important to note, actually. See most of the time, I get annoyed by lettuce because you have to rinse it and then you have to spin it in one of those salad spinners which really just means you get green water all over the place and then all you really have is soggy lettuce. With the pre-washed Baby Spinach, I really just toss it in a strainer, splash some water on it and it's all good to go. And if we are being completely honest here, sometimes I don't even do the final rinse (but of course if you've been reading this blog you know that about me already).

Store Location:
The Baby Spinach and the Thousand Island dressing are both in the fresh vegetable section, while the cheese is in the cheese section which is usually pretty close to the fresh vegetable section.

Categories: Dairy_, Heating Up™ Recipes_, Sauces, Dressings and Dips_, Snacks_, Vegetables_

Greek Style Plain Yogurt

I've always been a pretty big fan of yogurt, but I've never liked those fruit on the bottom or fruit mixed in yogurts. They always tasted really sweet to me and this was way before our current hate-affair with sugar. My mom invented her own home-made yogurts by mixing plain yogurt, sliced bananas and sugar. I liked this concoction better than the premade yogurts but it always turned out a little soupy to me, regular plain yogurt was just too thin.

Then my friend Cassandra introduced me to the magic that is TJs Greek yogurt. When she described it to me ("its like yogurt with the thicker consistency of sour cream") I knew I would love it, it's that thicker yogurt that I had always been dreaming of.

Trust me a little bit goes a long way. The serving size is 1 cup but I usually probably only have 1/2 a cup because its very very rich. And its pretty tangy (my boyfriend Paul makes that unhappy puckering face whenever he accidentally eats some of this yogurt, he's not a big fan) so be generous with the added sugar, fruit or honey. I like to add about three teaspoons of sugar and some fruit (usually TJs Pear Halves or Peaches since all types of other fruit always get eaten before I can remember to save them for my yogurt treat).

Growing up I actually didn't know that you were supposed to put sour cream on baked potatoes because in my house we always used plain yogurt (weird but true and by the way mom and dad I've never met anyone else who puts yogurt on their potatoes). So I use the greek yogurt on baked potatoes and dips for chips and basically anything that requires sour cream. A quick google just confirmed my thinking that the greek yogurt is a little better for you than the sour cream (1 cup of sour cream has roughly double the calories and double the fat of 1 cup of greek yogurt).

TJs has a bunch of pre-mixed flavors of Greek Yogurt that aren't actually all that bad, they are still a little too sweet for me. The fig Greek Style yogurt actually tastes pretty yummy, even though it seems a little weird. And come on how can you not love something that takes you "on a journey to the land of ancient gods and ruins?" (see: back of the container) My first official shout-out to the awesome product copy writers at TJs.

Cost: $1.99 per 16oz container

Nutritional Info:
Serving Size 1 cup (trust me that's too much)
Calories: 260
Total Fat: 20g
Sugars: 8g
Protein: 12g

Back of the container:
Ready for something a little unusual and completely delicious? Come with us on a journey to the land of ancient gods and ruins, where yogurt is a thick, creamy concoction with the consistency of sour cream. The tart flavor is similar to yogurt, but with more bit. Serve Trader Joe’s Greek Style Plain Yogurt with fresh berries or granola for breakfast, or sweeten it up with a bit of honey for a satisfying snack anytime.

Store Location: In the fridge section near the other yogurts