This month we are highlighting easy dinner ideas for the summer months. Summer months are way too hot to be cooking in the kitchen making the house even hotter.
During these months, mom likes to go for ‘light’ foods that really don’t require a lot of cooking. When mom/dad went to Chicago in May, my Aunt Tina got this salad in the picture below at Richard Walker’s Pancake House. Mom was so amazed about the beauty of it and knew that she could do the same when she got home and she did! So although this picture is not one of hers, she replicated it perfectly and has many times in the past couple of weeks. It’s very feeling and I know that first hoof because mom has fixed me some too. I’m a lucky pig, right? So without further ado, mom will give you the breakdown below. Enjoy my friends… I know I do!
Grilled or shredded chicken. I buy a rotisserie chicken at our local Sam’s Warehouse on Sundays. It costs $5.00 and I break it up into three different meals for two people each. Part of the shredded chicken goes into this this salad. Breaking it into three different meals makes it cost $1.67 for two people on this salad.
A head of lettuce costs $0.99 and again breaks it up into three different meals. That makes this part $0.33 for two people on this salad.
Shredded cheese. I buy medium block cheese and got a block on special for $0.99 a block. It’s really hard to ‘cost’ how much it would be for this salad. I use it on a lot of different things and shred some for this salad. I’m going to assume I cut the cheese block up into four sections. With that being said, this part in the salad would be $0.25 for two people.
Boiled egg. A dozen eggs cost me $1.29. If I know we will be doing several salads in the week, I will go ahead and boil 6 of them at a time. That way I’m ahead of the game. Two eggs (for two people) for this salad cost $0.11,
Avocado. I love slice avocado but the hub doesn’t. I buy one avocado and split it into two meals. Avocados were on sale for $1.00 so the salad part is $0.50.
Tomatoes. I bought six medium sized Roma tomatoes at the market for $1.39 – that’s $0.24 per tomato and we use one per meal for two people.
Broccoli – a head of broccoli was $1.59. Again, we break it up into many different snacks/meals. It probably ranged $0.40 per meal for two people.
Dressing for the salad – the hub uses 1000 Island and I use Italian. We pay $1.50 per bottle and it breaks down to about $0.25 per salad for two people.
Now the fun part – putting the salad together. The only thing I didn’t put in the salad was shredded carrots. Jim is not a huge fan so we left them out. To build the ‘salad’, we put shredded lettuce on the bottom. And when you do this, I make sure all of it is ‘bite sized’. I hate it when you order a salad in a restaurant and you have to use a knife to cut it up because everything is cut too big. Don’t you? After the lettuce, I then place the items above on top like the picture. I add the salad dressing and then toss to get everything coated with the dressing. Then it’s time to jump into that delicious salad and enjoy. Final cost $3.64 for two people.
Welcome my friends to a new year of adventure and great food!
Piglove 