Spinach and Watermelon Salad

What better way to pretend it’s summertime than to eat watermelon?  Being that we’ve had such warm weather this winter, it’s basically been spring since January.  So now it’s time for summer and let’s bring on the sun and hot weather already!  I love love love watermelon.  I love love love spinach.  I love love love cheese.  So let’s put them together! 

I wasn’t too sure about mozzarella on this salad, I knew feta would go really well with it, but I really didn’t want to buy a thing of feta and only use it for this one salad.  I could get more use out of mozzarella over a few courses than I would with feta.  So I got mozzarella.  And good thing it actually worked out really well. 

I used a very light homemade dressing.  My go-to salad dressing actually.  I’m not really sure of the measurements, but I will guess for blogging purposes… ^_^

Honey Lime Dressing

• 1 tablespoon of honey
• 1/2 lemon or lime (I used a lime that was in my fridge)
• 1 tsp olive oil
• salt, to taste
• freshly ground pepper, to taste

Mix the ingredients together.  Taste it and see how you like it and adjust accordingly if you want it a little sweeter or a little more tart.  This dressing complements the watermelon spinach combination really well.  This amount was enough to dress two salads, so adjust accordingly if you need more dressing. 

Put your spinach, watermelon, mozzarella (or feta..if you really want) together and mix the dressing over it.  SO GOOD!  You must try!

Wasabi Salmon with Quinoa, Green Beans, Mushrooms, and Spinach

Salmon… mmm. I haven’t made any sort of fish dish it seems like for such a long time (maybe since my parchment paper fish entry..ignore my very very bad photography! Can’t believe I am taking you guys back to something like this ;) Hehe). So I decided to make salmon as one of my meals. Plus Dr. Oz keeps badgering me about eating fish a few times a week! You have to do what the Dr. tells you right?

I found this cool twist on salmon using a wasabi flavor base. I always love some wasabi with my sushi so I knew this had to be delish. This is a pretty easy recipe with a small number of ingredients. Easy to do on an already tiring day.

Recipe from MyRecipes for Wasabi Salmon:

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon wasabi powder (dried Japanese horseradish)
• 1 teaspoon bottled minced fresh ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon dark sesame oil
• 4  (6-ounce) skinless salmon fillets (about 1 inch thick) $
• Cooking spray

Directions

1. Combine soy sauce, wasabi, ginger, and sesame oil in a large zip-top plastic bag; add fish. Seal and marinate at room temperature 5 minutes, turning bag occasionally to coat. Remove fish from the bag, reserving marinade.
2. While fish marinates, heat a large nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat. Add fish and marinade; cook 3 minutes. Turn fish over. Reduce heat to medium; cook 8 minutes or until fish is done.

I made some quinoa and used the leftover marinade as a sauce base to saute the vegetables in. I had spinach, green beans, and mushrooms. I sauteed the vegetables and used just a bit of the marinade to coat the veggies (can be very salty if you use too much since it was soy sauce based). I also put a bit of chicken stock to water it down so that the veggies were covered in sauce but also so that the flavors wouldn’t be toooooo intense on the veggies.

Okay, I hope you enjoy! :) To all my new followers, thank you for your follow! Yay! ^_^