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Ingredients Archives: Roma Tomatoes

Healthy, Easy Cowboy Salsa

By on May 27, 2016 in Side Dishes

This is a recipe my mother-in-law made at a picnic. It’s so much better than a jarred salsa. It’s perfect with tortilla chips or crackers, but all I need is my face and the bowl. YUM!!!

In a colander, drain and rinse:

  • 1 can corn
  • 1 can black beans (I thought I had black beans and didn’t, so I used a can of pinto beans instead, which was also delicious. Despite my husband’s original claim that pinto beans are just a cheap imitation of black beans, he enjoyed it with the pinto beans as well).

Put the beans and corn in a large bowl and add:

  • 6 or 7 chopped roma tomatoes – They key to this part is to get the tomatoes about the same size as the beans and corn.
  • 1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
  • 4 or 5 green onions – The easiest way I’ve found to chop green onions is to clip them with kitchen shears, similar to how you clip chives.

Toss this mixture together.

Then in a small bowl, combine:

  • 1 package powdered Italian dressing mix
  • the zest of one lime (this is optional, but I think it makes it even better!)
  • the juice of two limes

Pour this mixture over the salsa and toss. Cover the bowl and put it in the fridge so all the flavors can combine.


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Healthy Italian Side Salad

By on September 25, 2015 in Side Dishes

I eat green salad at least once a day. So the other night when I set out a green salad for dinner, my four year old threw her head back, groaned and shouted to the heavens with arms outstretched, “Why do we always have to have salad?!” Since I don’t want my daughter to decide she hates vegetable because she’s sick of salad, I decided we needed another fresh veggie side dish. This is even easier to make than a green salad and has an ingredient that makes everything better: CHEESE!

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Chop your tomatoes, cucumbers and cheese to roughly the same size. This makes it easier to taste all the flavors of the salad.

I like to use an organic Italian salad dressing mix which I make with olive oil and apple cider vinegar, but use what you like best (balsamic tastes great also). Just make sure it doesn’t have added sugars or bad hydrogenated oils (canola oil, vegetable oil, etc).

Just mix everything together and serve.

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Better than Restaurant Pico de Gallo

By on August 7, 2015 in Dressings and Sauces

Whenever I go to a Mexican restaurant, I always load whatever I’m eating with pico de gallo. Did you know pico de gallo is healthy? And did you know it’s extremely easy to make? I know that now and my life is much better because of it.

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Here are my top five favorite uses for pico de gallo:

  1.  Rather than spending a lot of time making a salsa or buying one full of preservatives, make a batch of pico de gallo and use this in place of salsa for tortilla chips.
  2. Use it on top of enchiladas, tacos, quesadillas or nachos to make them taste extra fresh and yummy.
  3. Top a salad with pico de gallo instead of dressing. Eating healthy means a lot of salads, so this helps to change things up a bit
  4. Grill a chicken breast and top it with pico de gallo. If you’re like me and make a big batch for the week, this makes dinner extremely easy.
  5. Stir pico de gallo into some brown rice for an easy side dish.

Now I’m sure you’re curious how to make it, so here we go. Pico de gallo has only 4-5 ingredients, plus salt and pepper to taste. I say 4-5 because the jalapeno is optional. I opt out because I have kids who aren’t fans of spicy food and I’m a spice wuss. At least I’m confident enough to admit it.

Start by chopping equal parts roma tomato, red onion and cilantro. Make the pieces as large or small as you like, but try to make them uniform. If you’re adding a jalapeno, remove the seeds and finely chop it. Stir this all together and squeeze in the juice of two limes. Now add salt and pepper to taste. That’s it!

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This is easy and versatile enough to whip up every week. And this is one of those fabulous recipes that gets better as it sits. Since I love the stuff so much, I’d love to know your favorite uses for pico de gallo.

 

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