There's nothing better than having friends who are as into healthy, fresh ingredients as you are! Especially when it's a great friend from high school who you randomly get back in touch with!  My friend Rachel from high school recently published a cookbook, called Spring Kitchen, which you can now buy in a Kindle Edition on Amazon!


The very first thing that caught my eye in this cookbook was this lovely recipe -- Smoked Salmon, Asparagus, and Avocado Salad. I'm a smoked salmon fiend, what with being from the PNW and all. As I read through the recipe, I realized how long it had been since I'd had some! I had left over asparagus, spinach, and avocado from the previous week of shopping, among some other random ingredients! The only thing left to get was the smoked salmon and some raspberry balsamic vinegar for the dressing!  I had to modify the recipe a little bit to meet my 21 day fix needs, but all in all it worked out great! I whipped up the dressing with lemon, olive oil, and the raspberry balsamic vinegar, and voila! Deliciousness!!

I even packed it for lunch one day, keeping the avocado  and dressing in my separate, 21 day fix containers so that the salad wouldn't be soggy by the time I ate it! :-)

It was so delicious, you all! I can't even begin to explain! I highly suggest being a bit more diligent in removing the bones from your smoked salmon--you won't regret it!

For all my 21 Day Fix friends, this lovely salad was portioned out each time, with the spinach and asparagus contributing 2 green, the smoked salmon 1 red, the avocado 1 blue, and 1 orange for the dressing! It is delicious! And I highly recommend you pick up the book and try it!

Other phenomenal salads and other recipes that I can't wait to try from Rachel's Spring Kitchen cookbook are:
-Date, Feta, and Prosciutto Salad -->This one is delicious too! I just had it for lunch! Though I didn't have any dates! The dressing is amazing!
-Prosciutto & Arugula Naan Pizza
-Strawberry Kiwi Parfait with Granola
-Raspberry Baked Cod

The other thing that I made this week was what I just like to call "Throw it Together" Chili, because that's pretty much what I did! :-)

I had a couple cans or beans (black and kidney), some ground turkey, and a whole bunch of peppers! So, I literally just cooked up the ground turkey and threw everything into a crock pot with some chili powder, cumin, and red peppers flakes, and a little bit of water to make it more liquidy! I didn't measure any of the spices, but I definitely think I would use another chili recipe as reference next time because I don't think I added enough. But regardless, all of those ingredients just stewed away in the crock pot for about 8 hours--and voila! Easy, delicious, hearty, healthy meal! :-)

For all my 21 Day Fix friends, I did pre-measure all the components of my chili to see how much of each component I was putting in.  So each serving, (which should give you about 6 servings) will have 1 yellow (the beans), 1 red (ground turkey), 1 green (all the VEGGIES!!).


That's all for now, everyone!

HAPPY EATING! :-)