Healthy eats for the summer heat.

Tonight, I was able to enjoy dinner at a close friends home. With ingredients in hand from researched recipes found on Pinterest, we prepped and prepared our meal together. With a glass of spiked lemonade (YUM), our small boys giggled, argued and played in the background as we sliced, mixed, and sizzled our way to dinner. It’s always nice to have some adult momma conversations, what little we were able to squeeze in between corralling kids and “what needs done now?”

Some of the recipes I tweaked and modified a little 😊, but I will share just where I found those recipes below.

What was on our menu? Lookie here.

• Grilled Pesto Turkey Burger
• Sweet Potato Fries with Chipolte dip
• Summer Spinach Salad
• Avocado salsa
• Fruit Salad

I am not a burger lover. I couldn’t tell you how many times I have been criticized for this fact. It’s something about the grease, the sound and feeling it makes when you bite into it and then the chewing factor. HOWEVER, I love ground turkey. I have made turkey burgers before and they were very dry. Like, take a bit and powder would poof from your mouth dry. The recipe we used this evening, provided delicious burgers. We opted out of the grill outside and used the good ole’ George Foreman. I love anything grilled on an open fire just as much as anyone else, but George proved to be an upstanding option when our burger came off the “grill” cooked just right. We later added a slice of fresh mozzarella and the avocado salsa to top. MMMMMM, MMMMM good! You can find that recipe here: Grilled Pesto Turkey Burgers . We did minus the pesto and arugula but it was still scrumptious!

Grilled pesto turkey burger

Grilled pesto turkey burger with sweet potato fries.

 

As our side, I washed and cut sweet potatoes into fries size slices. Mixed the bast and prepped them for the oven. Baked for 25 minutes and broiled for about 5, wall-a! Yumm! We also mixed the honey chipotle dipping sauce, willing to give it a try. Honestly, we all thought the dip tasted a little strange but once the dipped fry entered the taste bud world, ahhhhhhhhh, it just worked. It was delicious! You can find that recipe here: Sweet Potato Wedges with honey chipotle dipping sauce.

Sweet potatoes fries

Next up was the avocado salsa topping for the burger. Since we opted out of the pesto and I LOVE avocado (really, I eat at least one a day), we thought we’d give this simple recipe a try. So basically, you cut up two ripe avocados, 1 English cucumber, 1 pound of roma tomatoes, and 1/2 a red onion then simply drizzle olive oil and lemon juice over it and the season with sea salt and pepper… oh and finely chop some cilantro. Stir and enjoy! I had the pleasure of using a cool kitchen utensil, a pair of herb scissors. I may just invest in a pair and I found some on Amazon for only $10.95! As much as I would use them, I would definitely get my money’s worth.

I just can’t even begin to explain my happiness here. Consider me strange but salsa’s are one of my favorite, as well as avocado, so this was an exciting thing for me. Okay, if I’m being honest, I love food so it was all exciting.  But for the real recipe, find it here: Cucumber Tomato Avocado Salad. (Okay so they call it a salad, I call it salsa. No matter the name, it delicious!)

Avocado, tomato, cucumber “salsa” salad

Cutting cilantro

Next up was a simple summer salad. No real recipe here, just Spinach leaves, blueberries, quartered strawberries, pecans (you can candy them for extra sweetness, we like them plain), crumbled blue cheese and drizzle with my homemade (clean) Honey Mustard dressing. I actually found this recipe months ago and haven’t stopped using it since. I never liked honey mustard dressing. It was too creamy, or I don’t know, just not in cahoots with my taste buds. This new clean dressing is my new go to dressing. Find the recipe for that here: Clean Honey Mustard Dressing. The dressing paired very nicely with the salad.

Super simple colorful dessert was loved by everyone. Especially the littles. In which case they ate most of everything on their plate tonight. Always introduce new foods to them. NO, not chicken nuggets instead of burgers, tater tots instead of french fries, taco instead of nachos and cheese. Right, we are all busy and sometimes a stop at the drive thru is necessary, but it is very VERY important that these instances are few and far between. You can find healthier choices on most menus when you do have to make that stop. My son gets treated every now and then. Nothing wrong with a treat, just don’t make it a habit. Learn about the food you are feeding your children. They deserve real meat, real vegetables, real fruits, very little soda if any at all (or sugar filled juice.) and no toxins or chemicals.

Okay, okay, enough about all the health lecture, got off a little on a soap box. Seriously, this was a most delicious dinner. I dare you to try at least one of the most simple, familiar foods that your family just may well like if you just try it. Let us know what you think.

A big thank you to Tara over at Tara Nicole Photography for photographing the meal. Her belly was very happy to comply! If you get time, head on over to her photography site (here: taranicolephotography) for more pictures. She’s pretty amazing!

Look for more food shares in the future! This was too fun not to.