VegWeek 2014: Day 2
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Since I started VegWeek a day early, here is a brief summary of my Day 2.
Breakfast: Veggie Scramble (onion, red bell pepper, and spinach) and half of a grapefruit
Morning Snack: Black Cherry Chobani and a banana
Lunch: Split Pea Soup and Fresh Strawberries
Afternoon Snack: Almonds, String Cheese, Baby Carrots
Dinner: Grilled Veggie Salad and part of a Chocolove bar
Somewhere in there: More peanut M&Ms than I would like to admit…
Let’s talk about that Grilled Veggie Salad. While we were planning our menu for the week, I hit Pinterest and some of the vegetarian blogs I read and came across a couple of different grilled veggie salads. Nathan was inspired, but since he doesn’t eat mushrooms or tomatoes, we knew we would have to think of some different veggie options. He knew he wanted sweet potato and asparagus and I wanted bell pepper and red onion, but we felt like we needed something else. Once we saw how beautiful the fennel was this week, we knew we had stumbled on the final ingredient.
We prepped the veggies for the grill by snapping the woody ends off of the asparagus, cutting the onion into thick slices (they hold together a little better that way), cut the pepper into 8 large chunks, cut a sweet potato into slices a little thicker than 1/4 inch and parboiled the slices for about 5 minutes, and sliced the fennel vertically. If you want the fennel to hold together, only trim the core, don’t remove it completely! Nathan brushed all of the veggies with some olive oil and threw them on the grill. The asparagus and onion went on a few minutes before everything else because we knew those would take a little longer.
While Nathan grilled, I constructed the rest of the salad. We used a combination of spinach and baby arugula for the bed of the salad. We usually buy these items separately so we can mix in as much or as little arugula as we like depending on our dish. I made a simple dressing of white balsamic vinegar (2 Tbsp), Dijon mustard (1/2 Tbsp), olive oil (3 Tbsp), and a little salt and pepper. It was a little thick, but it had a great flavor so I left it that way.
When the veggies were done, Nathan arranged the veggies on top of our greens and I drizzled a heaping tablespoon of dressing over each of our plates. After a killer spin class, it was the perfect end to our day! This dish just made it into our regular meal rotation!
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[…] Grilled Veggie Salad – The weather is supposed to be great for grilling this week, so why not add another grilled meal to the mix? We love this one! […]