My Buddy Joe

One of my all-time favorite stores is Trader Joe's.

I used to shop there when I lived on Long Island. We had a store open sometime in the late 90's in Commack. When I moved to the Boston area, we had even more Trader Joe's to choose from. When we settled in Connecticut, I had to wait a while before one opened nearby in Danbury...but as soon as it did I was back in the zone!

TJ's has something for everyone, all of it a veritable bargain. We buy all of our coffee there, most of the lunches that my husband takes to work, my beloved salsa that is irreplaceable, countless vegetarian items, oatmeal, the best cornbread mix ever, and so much more.

It works when you want to eat clean and be super-healthy, and there's also plenty for when you just want to be a sloppy mess. I got blindsided this holiday season by something called Jingle Jangle.

Chocolate-covered Joe-Joe (Oreos) pieces, dark and milk chocolate covered pretzels, dark and milk chocolate covered caramel corn, dark and milk chocolate mini peanut butter cups and some crappy fake m&m-type things.

I fell face-first into this can and didn't come up for air until New Year's Day.

Yikes!

Anyway, now that I am back on the wagon I am sticking to the clean-eating options at TJ's...which brings me to cookbook #16 of 99.

I must be really getting old, because here is another book that I can't recall the details of. I think that I had read about it online. There is a website about TJ's that reviews their new products and discusses what has been discontinued there...and yes I realize I sound like a nut when I admit to following such nonsense. What can I say? I've got issues.

So, book was purchased and a few dishes were made. The premise was that all recipes included items that could be purchased at TJ's. I don't recall anything memorable, but I do know that some pretty nasty peanut noodles were consumed and Cooking With All Things Trader Joe's went to live downstairs on the shelf.

Now that my eating habits have changed significantly, I found some more options that appealed to me when I re-read the book. Particularly one called Hearts and Snaps.

This was super-easy to make, and while I did purchase the majority of the ingredients at TJ's the only one that HAS to come from there is the Goddess Dressing.

This stuff is SO good!

The rest of the ingredients can be found anywhere...

Hearts and Snaps Salad

1 cup sliced hearts of palm
1 cup chopped cucumbers
1 cup halved or quartered cherry tomatoes
1 cup sugar snap peas, chopped in thirds
1/4 chopped parsely (cilantro may be substituted - I used cilantro and it was YUM!)
1/4 cup crumbled feta (I used TJ's Reduced-Fat Feta)
1/4 cup goddess dressing

Combine it all in a bowl and toss to blend.

Serves 4, and is considered Cycle 3 on the 17DD. We all really loved this salad, and I would make it for company in a heartbeat! It's considerably more "summery" tasting than a cold-weather dish and it would make a great healthy addition to a picnic or bbq!

How many days left until summer?????

A Little Bit of Summer in Winter

There's snow on the ground, it was 16 degrees today, and we are all wearing thermal underwear.

I am dreaming of warm weather.

I complain in the Summer when its too hot, I complain in the Winter when its too cold. I can't help it.

Despite the freezing cold, I made a very "Summery" dinner.

Ina Garten's Salmon Salad.

This comes from the original 1999 Barefoot Contessa cookbook, and has always been a favorite of mine. Luckily, it fits in nicely to the 17 Day Diet.

I started with two pounds of fresh salmon. I've become pretty good at cooking salmon ever since I got the skillet that goes into the oven. I start it on top of the stove to sear, flip it over and then finish it off in the stove at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

After it cooked, I let it rest for a bit before I broke it up into pieces. It was really hard not to pop bits in my mouth as I was doing this. It was so good! All I did was drizzle a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper before searing. Yum.

After cooking the salmon, the rest is a cinch. Just dicing up the celery and onion, and chopping the dill. Other than that its a few tablespoons and teaspoons of this and that.

Miraculously, we all ate the same thing for dinner! Even the picky kiddo ate it, and went above and beyond expectations by thanking me for making it.

I'll have to thank Auntie for creating it. Another satisfied customer!