Living La Vida Holoka


Mixed Berry Salad with Grilled Chicken

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Make the best of those summertime berries with this Mixed Berry Salad with Grilled Chicken and a homemade strawberry balsamic vinaigrette! It’s a light and delicious summer lunch that’s bursting with berry flavor!  


We’ve probably had the best strawberries ever growing in our garden this year. I’ll attribute that to completely relaying soil in our strawberry boxes and adding a few new plants. Of course, the weather could definitely be a factor, too.  Strawberries are down for a good drink (facts!) and they’ve had their fill lately with all of the rain we’ve been getting. 

Whatever it is, I’m entirely thankful for the big, sweet berries we’ve been plucking from the vines. Whenever I get a good handful – and when I don’t pop them straight into my mouth from the stem – I like to add them to salads.


I was totally craving a summer-inspired salad last week.  But if I was going to make a salad bursting with berries, I was going to need a lot more than what we get off our plants!  So I hit the mecca of berry sales at Whole Foods – 2 for $5 organic strawberries, 2 for $5 organic raspberries, and super cheap organic blueberries.  I loaded up on all of them!  

The mix of berries add a mouthful of sweetness to this summer inspired salad.  I’m such a fan of big salads that are full of fresh ingredients and flavors that play off of each other in every yummy forkful.  

A “berry” delicious and light summertime lunch!

 
Honestly, a big salad bowl full of greens, berries, onion, sliced almonds, and cheese would have been enough to satisfy my craving for a light, summertime lunch. But I tossed in a little chopped, grilled chicken, too.

I also topped this salad with a homemade strawberry balsamic dressing.  Sure, I could have used the bottled, berry vinaigrette in our fridge, but it’s so easy to make your own!  I was able to put some of my strawberries to good use and blended them with olive oil, balsamic, and a touch of honey! 

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Mixed Berry Salad with Grilled Chicken

Mixed Berry Salad with Grilled Chicken

Ingredients

    For the chicken:
  • 1 large, or 2 small, boneless, skinless chicken breasts
  • 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
    • For the salad:
  • 2 small heads of Romaine lettuce, cleaned and chopped
  • 1/2 cup strawberries, sliced
  • 1/2 cup blueberries
  • 1/2 cup raspberries
  • 1/4 cup red onion, sliced
  • 4 ounces mozzarella balls, halved
  • 1/4 cup sliced almonds
  • 2 tbsp. fresh basil, chopped
    • For the dressing:
  • 1 cup strawberries, cleaned and halved
  • 6 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
  • 3 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
  • 1/2 tbsp. honey

Instructions

    For the chicken:
  1. Preheat the grill to medium heat.
  2. Season the chicken on both sides with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
  3. Place the chicken on the grill and cook for five minutes on each side, or until cooked through completely.
  4. Once cooked, let the chicken cook down for a couple minutes. Then, dice.
    5. For the salad:
  5. Add the Romaine lettuce, berries, onion, mozzarella, almonds, basil, and chicken to a salad bowl. Toss to incorporate all of the ingredients.
    6. For the dressing:
  6. Blend all of the ingredients together.
  7. Strain and pour over salad.
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If you need an idea to use up those berries picked from a local farm or want to take something red, white, and blue to a 4th of July barbecue, this mixed berry salad is it!  It’s colorful, it’s fresh, and it tastes like summer should!  It’s a little sweet, a little tangy, and a whole lot of delicious! 

Omit the chicken if you’re vegetarian or feeding a crowd at your next cookout.  The strawberry dressing makes a lot, but you might want to double the recipe for a big bash.


If this salad was all I had to eat all summer long, I definitely wouldn’t be mad.  In fact, I probably will make this most of the summer because it’s just that good!  

If you make this salad, let me know what you think in the comments!  Also, make sure that you tag me on social media with the hashtag, #livinglavidaeats.  I want to see your beautiful salad creation (and that way I can relive this recipe)! 

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If you like this salad recipe, you might enjoy these as well:

Wonton Noodle Soup with Pork Meatballs

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If Chinese takeout is a must on cold days, enjoy the flavor of homemade wonton soup without the fuss with this homemade Wonton Noodle Soup with Pork Meatballs recipe!


Why do I always want soup when it’s warm out? 

We just went through a Polar Vortex of extremely frigid temperatures (or so I’ve been told – the cold never bothered me anyway).  Then, it went from one extreme to another and warmed up to 60 degrees.  I was in the middle of a little “meal prep Monday” session when I started getting a sinus headache.  It turned into a full blown migraine that had me in bed for a good portion of the day. 

Thankfully, I had finished my meatballs for this soup beforehand!  All I had to do the next day was boil my soup and dish it out into a bowl!  So on a 60 degree day, that felt more like springtime than winter, I whipped up a batch of this wonton noodle soup and enjoyed every single, slurp-worthy second of it!

It’s takeout soup without the delivery wait!

 
There’s nothing more comforting than a bowl of noodle soup.  Even in warm temps when you’re battling day two of the raging sinus headache (thankfully, this one didn’t last as long and wasn’t as severe).

Chinese takeout and wonton soup are usually reserved for snow days, but I had been dying to make this recipe for months (there was even an Instagram poll about it – did you see it?)!  Making the pork meatballs the day before ended up being a blessing in disguise.  All I had to do the next day was drop them into broth with some chopped bok choy and wonton wrappers.


I decided to use wonton wrappers as an easy noodle replacement.  I cut the wrappers into strips using a pizza cutter.  They don’t take long at all to cook.  Maybe about a minute or two.  Some of them stuck together in the process, becoming one thick, chewy noodle! 

You might have to add a little more broth or even water after adding the wonton noodles.  They tend to suck up a lot of the liquid while they’re cooking.

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Wonton Noodle Soup with Pork Meatballs

Wonton Noodle Soup with Pork Meatballs

Ingredients

    For the meatballs:
  • 1 lb. ground pork
  • 3 scallions, chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • Splash of sesame oil
  • 2 tbsp. low sodium soy sauce, or your favorite soy sauce
  • 1-2 inch piece ginger, peeled and grated
  • 1 egg white
  • 1 small head bok choy, leaves removed, cleaned, and chopped
    • For the soup:
  • 32 oz. (approx. 5 cups) vegetable or chicken broth
  • 25-35 wonton wrappers, cut into strips
  • 2 small heads bok choy, washed and roughly chopped
  • Pork meatballs
  • Green onions, chopped, to garnish
  • Optional: 1 inch piece ginger, peeled and grated

Instructions

    For the meatballs:
  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  2. Mix the meatball ingredients together in a mixing bowl.  Then, form mixture into small, 2 inch meatballs and place on the prepared baking sheet.
  3. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until fully cooked through.
    4. For the soup:
  4. Bring the vegetable broth to a rolling boil.
  5. Carefully drop in pork meatballs and bok choy. Cook until the bok choy starts to wilt, about 4 minutes.
  6. Add the wonton strips and cook for about 5 minutes, or until the wontons are soft.
  7. Spoon soup into bowls, garnish with green onions, and serve.
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You’ll probably end up with about half a package of wonton wrappers leftover. I’m still deciding what to do with mine. In the meantime, I have them in the freezer. When it comes time to whip up some amazing takeout-at-home style recipe, all I’ll have to do is thaw them out! 

And speaking of the freezer, this soup serves about 4-6 bowls, so enjoy it all week or freeze the leftovers and have better-than-takeout style soup anytime the craving hits!

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If you like this soup recipe, you might enjoy these as well:

Goat Cheese, Fig, and Prosciutto Sweet Potato Toast

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This post is sponsored by Montchevre but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.

Make lunchtime or snacktime the G.O.A.T with this easy, sweet, and savory Goat Cheese, Fig, and Prosciutto Sweet Potato Toast recipe! 


Sweet potato toast has become pretty trendy over the past few years.  So I thought it was about time that I tasted what this healthy trend was all about!  I’ve seriously been missing out, guys!  With fall just a few weeks away, sweet potatoes are going to show up on our plates a lot and sweet potato toast is bound to become a new favorite lunch or snack!  I mean, the topping possibilities are basically endless!  I’ve seen sweet potato toast topped with berries and nut butters, tomato and avocado, and all kinds of interesting combos.  They all look so good!

Plus, one sweet potato makes a lot of toast!  So you can keep switching up how you eat it throughout the week (keep raw slices wrapped up in the fridge until you’re ready to cook them).  This Goat Cheese, Fig, and Prosciutto Sweet Potato Toast turned out to be a pretty perfect lunch!  The sweet and salty combo of flavors is the best of both worlds!  As an Italian girl from Jersey, I’m no stranger to prosciutto and figs (figgettaboudit!).  This time of year, I cannot wait to find figs at my local markets!  Figs have a sweetness all their own that works so well with savory flavors – like prosciutto and goat cheese!



Under all of the sweet and salty goodness is a nice layer of Montchevre Goat Cheese!  Goat cheese is one of my absolute favorite types of cheese!  It’s creamy, salty, and mild in flavor.  We crumble it on top of our salads, mix it into our breakfast scrambles, and now I’m topping sweet potato toast with it! 

You can easily incorporate Montchevre Goat Cheese into your healthy lifestyle, which makes it perfect for sweet potato toast!  It’s made with quality goat’s milk that’s collected from local, independent family farms.  It’s high in protein, calcium, vitamin D, is rich in nutrients and vitamins, and contains less lactose!

Montchevre Goat Cheese is available in so many flavors, too!  I’ve never tried anything more adventurous than garlic and herb goat cheese before.  My fridge usually contains natural goat cheese.  Since I knew that I wanted to finish this sweet potato toast off with a drizzle of honey, I used Montchevre’s Honey Goat Cheese for this recipe.  The hint of sweetness is a nice balance to the tanginess of the goat cheese.

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Goat Cheese, Fig, and Prosciutto Sweet Potato Toast

Goat Cheese, Fig, and Prosciutto Sweet Potato Toast

Ingredients

  • 1 small sweet potato (or 1/2 large), cut into 1/4 inch slices with a mandolin
  • 4 oz. Montchevre Goat Cheese Log, plain or honey
  • Prosciutto slices
  • Figs, stems discarded and sliced
  • 1/4 cup salt and pepper pistachios, crushed
  • Honey, to drizzle
  • Extra virgin olive oil
  • Grey sea salt (or coarse sea salt), to taste

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  2. Brush both sides of sweet potato slices with extra virgin olive oil.
  3. Season with sea salt.
  4. Place on baking sheet and bake for 28-30 minutes or until bottoms turn golden brown. Remove from baking sheet.
  5. Spread Montchevre Goat Cheese onto each potato slice.
  6. Top with a slice of prosciutto and fig slices.
  7. Sprinkle pistachios on top, drizzle with honey, and serve.
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My first sweet potato toast experience did not disappoint! If you’re into the sweet potato toast trend and looking for a new way to top it, this is the way to go!  This medley of sweet and savory flavors is so satisfying!  No matter what combo I end up topping my next sweet potato toast creation with next, one thing’s for sure – I’m going to make it the G.O.A.T. with a creamy layer of Montchevre Goat Cheese!  It’s the perfect base for all sorts of healthy toppings!

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What Montchevre Goat Cheese flavor would you top your sweet potato toast with?

Sriracha Shrimp and Summer Veggie Flatbread

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I received product from Cole & Mason in exchange for this post.  No other compensation has been received.  All opinions are 100% my own.

This Sriracha Shrimp and Summer Veggie Flatbread is packed with flavor, “summer heat,” and a ton of fresh, garden veggies!  It’s a delicious, light summer lunch!

 

When my father makes mussels in the summer, he always makes them with “summer heat.” That means that there’s just enough heat added to the dish without making you break into a sweat!  It’s summer.  You’re probably overheating already!  “Summer heat” is a nice heat that makes the tongue tingle, but doesn’t take away from any of the other flavors in the dish.  So when Cole & Mason sent me their Sriracha Spice Seasoning Mill Refill, I immediately thought about creating a recipe with a little of that “summer heat.” 

Mussels.  Been there, done that a few times.  I love them, but I’m giving shrimp the spotlight in this recipe.  I recently scored an awesome deal on shrimp from one of my favorite local fishmongers!  We’re talking enough shrimp to split into three or four plentiful two-serving portions!  So I decided to use some of our shrimp to make a Sriracha Shrimp and Summer Veggie Flatbread.  This flatbread has just the right amount of that “summer heat” and gives you a delicious reason to use up some of your garden bounty!


It was a slow start to gardening season this year, but our plants are really starting to burst now.  Especially the garden at my in-laws’ house!  It’s like having a free farmer’s market just a few minutes away!  Between our garden and their garden, I’ve been trying to add a ton of homegrown veggies into every meal. We definitely have enough eggplant, zucchini, onions, peppers, and tomatoes to do just that!

Another thing I tend to have stocked most of the time is flatbread.  I picked up a package of roasted garlic flatbread, just because, but wanted to use it for something more than just flatbread pizza. It was the perfect base for my summer veggies and adding Sriracha seasoned shrimp to the mix made it a tasty party!  This flatbread is definitely an excellent, light, summer lunch!

BRING THE HEAT WITH THIS SRIRACHA SHRIMP AND SUMMER VEGGIE FLATBREAD!

Sriracha Shrimp and Summer Veggie Flatbread
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Ingredients
  1. 8-10 large shrimp, peeled and cleaned
  2. 1/2 or more tbsps. Cole & Mason Sriracha Seasoning, ground
  3. 1 roasted garlic naan flatbread
  4. 1/4 cup red onion, thinly sliced
  5. 1/4 cup grape tomatoes, cut into quarters
  6. 1 whole-1/2 small green bell pepper, cut into thin strips
  7. 1/2 cup small zucchini, cut into thin rounds
  8. Extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  2. In a medium bowl, toss the shrimp in a little olive oil and the Cole & Mason Sriracha Seasoning.
  3. Add about a tablespoon of olive oil to a medium-large skillet and heat over a medium flame.
  4. Then, add the prepped veggies and cook for about 6-8 minutes, or until the veggies just begin to soften.
  5. Add the seasoned shrimp to the skillet and cook until they're pink and cooked through, about 4-5 minutes.
  6. While the veggies and shrimp are cooking, place the flatbread in the oven to warm.
  7. When the veggies and shrimp are done cooking, remove the flatbread.
  8. Use tongs to add the veggie and shrimp mixture on top of the flatbread.
  9. Cut into pieces with a pizza cutter and enjoy!
Living La Vida Holoka https://www.livinglavidaholoka.com/


I have to admit that I wasn’t familiar with Cole & Mason’s seasonings before creating this post.  I’m glad so I was introduced to them!  I’m going to be putting this Sriracha Spice on a ton of dishes!  The seasonings are meant to be ground in a mill to release their natural flavors.  My mortar and pestle worked just as well!

Each of Cole & Mason’s spice blends are certified Kosher and made with quality ingredients.  Want to try one of these blends for yourself?  Enter this sweepstakes for your chance to win free product, housewares, or a grand prize worth $1000!

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What’s your favorite meal to spice up with Sriracha?



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