Fast & Fresh: Blackberry, Blue Cheese, and Spinach Salad

With all the fresh produce of summer it's hard not to take advantage of them. 

This year has been a "Berry" year for me.  I've made more dishes with berries than ever before, and I absolutely love them!

During these hot end of summer days a fresh salad always comes to mind.  I like salads, but I seem to crave them more in the summer months.  Cool, light, crisp, refreshing, and unique flavors to add some zip to a plain old salad.

Today's salad is part of my Fast & Fresh series. 

"Fast & Fresh"

• Simple ingredients
• Fresh and healthy
• Easy prep
• Delishhhh taste!

This salad is perfect for lunch or as a side salad with dinner.  Of course I had to use "berries" in it!  Why wouldn't I?

So I created a Blackberry, Blue Cheese, and Spinach Salad.  YUM!  The flavors of this salad are sweet and tangy.  It has just the right amount of blue cheese and blackberries, and is topped off with a lemon vinaigrette.  All on top of a bed of fresh spinach leaves.  Sounds good huh?

First you make the dressing.  I use a cute little canning jar for this so I can just shake it up and store any left overs in it for a couple of days in the refrigerator.  So to a jar or bowl add your lemon juice, dried thyme, Dijon mustard, salt & pepper, and your olive oil.  If you are making this in a bowl whisk in your olive oil as your slowly drizzle it in to get the dressing to emulsify.  Easy as that!

Next, arrange your spinach on your plates, top with blackberries and drizzle on some salad dressing and toss to coat well.  Then add your blue cheese crumbles.  Your done!  So fast, easy, and oh soooo tasty!

 

So I hope you enjoy this recipe.  It only takes minutes to make but the results are delishhhh!

Blackberry, Blue Cheese, and Spinach Salad

serves 4

Ingredients
 
1 ½ T fresh lemon juice
1 t dried thyme
1/2 t Dijon mustard
1/4 t salt
1/4 t black pepper
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
6 c fresh spinach
1 c blackberries
2 ounces mild blue cheese, crumbled

Directions

In a small bowl or a jar add olive oil, lemon juice, thyme mustard, salt, and pepper.  Whisk together or shake up to mix together.

Divide among 4 salad plates the spinach and berries.  Gently toss with dressing to coat thoroughly.  Crumble blue cheese on each salad. Enjoy!

adapted from a Sunset recipe

Fast & Fresh: Tomato and Chive Breakfast Melts

I love breakfast.

During the week I don't get time to cook a good breakfast as I'm always running out the door and grabbing a piece of toast and some yogurt to take along to work. 

So the other day I stumbled upon a recipe for a breakfast melt using tomatoes, cheese, and English muffins.  Ingredients I usually have on hand.  I knew I had to try this because it was something hearty that I could whip up fast during the week and really call a healthy, fast & fresh dish!

What makes this recipe outstanding is the sauce...oh my!  It's tangy flavor is just the right compliment to the tomatoes.

So let's make Tomato and Chive Breakfast Melts.

Turn on your broiler to preheat.  Let's mix up the sauce first.  In a small bowl add the yogurt, mustard, olive oil, and oregano.  Mix well, then set aside.

Slice your cherry tomatoes in half.  I used yellow ones cause that's what I had...red would be very pretty and delishhh!

Split your English muffins in half and toast under the broiler for 1 minute, or until lightly toasted.

Top each muffin half with about 1-2 teaspoons of sauce.

Top with cheese.  Save some for on top of the tomatoes.

Top with tomatoes, dividing among the muffins.  Top with some more cheese.

Add snipped chives.

Return to the oven and broil for another minute or two until hot and cheese has melted.

Voila!  Simple, tasty, fresh, and wholesome!

What a great breakfast or snack!

Tomato and Chive Breakfast Melts

serves 4

Ingredients

4 whole grain English muffins, split

1/4 cup nonfat plain Greek style yogurt

1 1/2 T Dijon mustard

1 T extra virgin olive oil

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/2 cup cheddar cheese, grated 

1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, quartered

1 t snipped chives

Directions

Preheat broiler. Place muffins cut side up, on a baking sheet and broil for about 1 minute  until edges are beginning to lightly brown.

In a small bowl, whisk together yogurt, Dijon, oil, and oregano. Spoon about 1 ½ teaspoons onto each muffin half, spreading evenly to coat. Sprinkle with cheese, tomatoes and chives, dividing each evenly. Broil for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes or until cheese has melted.

Adapted from Clean Eating magazine

Fast & Fresh: Blueberry Butter

Take advantage of summer's tastiest berry, and start your day off right!

Make some Blueberry Butter.  This is a fast & fresh way to use the end of summer berries and would be perfect on breakfast breads, muffins, crackers, or bagels.

This is really easy to make, and would lend itself to other berries as well.

Hope you enjoy this great little treat!  Let me know what you think.

Blueberry Butter

Ingredients:

½ c butter, softened
3 ½ T blueberries, chopped

Directions:

Mix softened butter with chopped blueberries until well incorporated.  Don’t mix to roughly or you will break down the blueberries and end up with purple butter.

Take a piece of waxed paper and place the butter mixture on it.  Shape butter in to a log.  Wrap up tightly in the waxed paper.  Twist each end like a candy wrapper and push both ends toward the middle to get a good condensed roll.  Chill until firm.

Slice into round discs and serve.