Quick and Easy Salad Recipes - Tomato Mozzarella With Basil and Tangy Coleslaw

Take advantage of the fresh garden vegetables with these quick and easy recipes. Tomato Mozzarella Salad with Basil is perfect for the fresh tomatoes currently available in your garden, farmers markets and grocery produce sections. Is there anything better than fresh tomatoes paired with fresh mozzarella cheese and fresh basil, drizzled with a fresh dressing? The Tangy Coleslaw is a quick and easy recipe using a prepackaged slaw mix. When you use the Splenda instead of the sugar in this recipe, both recipes are diabetic friendly.

TOMATO MOZZARELLA SALAD WITH BASIL
Dressing:
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
Salad:
1 1/4 lbs tomatoes, sliced
4 oz mozzarella cheese, diced
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
To make the dressing: In a bowl whisk the olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper together to mix well.
Arrange the sliced tomatoes on a serving platter. Sprinkle the mozzarella over the tomatoes, then sprinkle the basil over all. Drizzle the dressing over the salad.
Yield: 4 servings
QUICK AND EASY TANGY COLESLAW
1 pkg (16-oz) cabbage/carrot slaw mixture
1/2 cup low-fat mayonnaise
1/2 cup plain fat-free yogurt
3 tbsp sugar or Splenda granular
1 tbsp + 1 tsp prepared horseradish
2 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp salt
Combine the mayonnaise, yogurt, sugar OR Splenda, prepared horseradish, dry mustard, and salt in a medium to large bowl. Add the slaw and toss together well. Cover and chill before serving.
Note: This makes a great dressing for pork sandwiches, wraps, etc.
Enjoy!

For more of Linda's quick and easy recipes, visit her blog at http://grandmasquickfixrecipes.blogspot.com
For more of her recipes and diabetic information visit http://diabeticenjoyingfood.squarespace.com

Why Broccoli Salad is a Great Choice

Broccoli is a versatile vegetable. It is ideal in stir fries and you can also steam it, boil it, grill it, or roast it. Have you ever made a broccoli salad? Broccoli is just as tasty raw as it is cooked.
Perhaps you have tasted the popular Ruby Tuesday broccoli salad, in which broccoli is combined with cheese, bacon, mayonnaise and other flavorful ingredients. This is a healthy yet delicious dish and it is one of the best loved Ruby Tuesday recipes.

Health Benefits of Broccoli
Serve a broccoli salad as a side dish with any meat or fish or even as part of a buffet if you are having a party. You will love the flavor of it and also the nutritional value. Broccoli is a very healthy vegetable, as you probably already know, and is high in vitamin C, to aid the body's iron absorption, help with the symptoms of a cold, and prevent cataracts from developing.
Broccoli also contains folic acid, which is important for pregnant women, calcium to prevent osteoporosis and potassium to keep blood pressure at normal levels. It is also high in fiber.
Famous Broccoli Salad Recipes
There are copycat recipes available for pretty much any meal you can think of, so whether you are partial to KFC, fond of famous French onion soup or craving another famous dish, the odds are that you can find it online. You might like to do an internet search for broccoli salad or a recipe search by ingredient to find the perfect salad recipe.
Bear in mind though that not all copycat recipes are equal and some will not give you a good result at all so compare copycat recipes and read reviews of the dish, if they are available, to give you a better idea. Making copycat recipes can be a bit hit and miss sometimes but when do you find a great one, either print it out or bookmark it so you can find it again.
Also, you do not have to stick rigidly to a recipe that you find online if you want to tweak it a little. You can spice a recipe up, substitute one ingredient for another or tweak it to make it unique. Use existing recipes as a basis to develop your own recipes.
Some recipes are perfect just as they are though. It is difficult to improve on the famous Ruby Tuesday broccoli salad, for example!
Other Ways to Make a Broccoli Salad
You can combine broccoli with other vegetables such as zucchini, carrot, and cauliflower to make a raw vegetable salad. Add some mayonnaise and either mustard, ketchup or curry powder to give the salad a delicious flavor. The texture of the raw vegetables might seem unusual to you if you are used to eating cooked vegetables but raw broccoli or gently steamed broccoli is really good. Try it and see!
You might like to make a broccoli and macaroni salad or a broccoli and rice salad. Broccoli is delicious, nutritious, and versatile, making it a great choice for salad recipes as well as lots of other dishes.

Whether you enjoy stumbling across new, exciting recipes on food blogs or doing a more specific recipe search by ingredient to find exactly what you are looking for, there are lots of recipes to be found online, including the best restaurant copycat recipes.
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Tomato Salad Recipe: Two Great Tomato Salad Recipes

Are you looking for a tasty tomato salad recipe? If you look online, there many different tomato salad recipes available. Tomato salads are great, because they are very tasty, easy to make, and you can serve tomato salads with many different meals. You can serve it with many different dishes. You can serve it with burgers, steaks, chicken salad, roasted chicken. You can serve it with sandwiches, such as egg salad sandwiches, pork sandwiches, turkey sandwiches, steak sandwiches and many more. There are lots of different tomato salad recipes to choose from. Read this article for tomato salad recipes!

And how about different dressings for your salads? You can make a ton of different salad dressings, and they all taste great! You can dress it with just olive oil, or with a bit of lemon juice, or with olive oil and vinegar. There are tons of delicious dressings that you can make to dress your salad.
If you are looking for Tomato Mozzarella Salad Recipe, this is a very easy recipe that you can make fast and it will taste great. Just combine fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil. You can dress this salad very lightly and you are done!
Or, you can combine chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and dill, lightly dress it with some oil and vinegar and you will a delicious Tomato Cucumber Salad that you can serve.
For a great and very tasty tomato salad recipe, take a look these two great recipes:
1. Tomato Mozzarella Salad.
Check out this great looking and great tasting dish! Because this tomato mozzarella salad has red tomatoes, white mozzarella and green basil, the colors look great together, and the dish tastes great too. The combination of fresh mozzarella cheese, red tomatoes and green basil makes this dish great to look at, and it also makes the salad very tasty! Plus, when you are adding an herb such as basil, which add green color, you will make the salad even tastier and even more colorful.
This tomato salad is very easy to make. Just combine chopped tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese and basil. Use a bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar to lightly dress this salad. Or, skip the vinegar and just use olive oil to dress it - it will still be very tasty.
2. Tomato Cucumber Salad.
Here is another very easy tomato cucumber salad that you can make. For this dish you will need cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and dill.
Here is how to make this tomato cucumber salad. Chop the cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, and dill. Combine tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and dill and dress the salad lightly with some red wine vinegar and olive oil.

And here are step-by-step tomato salad recipes with all the information that you need to make them. Check out Tomato Mozzarella Salad and Tomato Cucumber Salad.

Creamy Macaroni Salad With Shredded Parmesan Cheese - An Updated American Classic

When I was growing up on Long Island, New York my mother often asked me to walk four blocks to the local deli and buy lunch meat or salad. The store owner knew me because his daughter was a friend of mine. "What would you like to taste?" he would ask. My answer was always the same -- macaroni salad. He would hand me a small dish of salad, a tiny spoon to eat with, and add "No charge."

Since I adored mayonnaise, and still do, I adored this salad of elbow macaroni, chopped tomatoes, green pepper, and a little celery. Many kids do not like celery because it has a strong flavor. The small amount of celery may be another reason I loved the salad so much. Of course, the friendliness of the store owner influenced my opinion.
The old, time-tested recipe for macaroni salad was pretty simple, noodles with lots of mayonnaise. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of recipes on the Internet. The Southern Food website has posted a recipe that includes hard-cooked eggs. The Food Network website has posted a recipe for dressing made with sour cream. But these are not the recipes of my childhood. I wanted a healthier version of the creamy classic.
To learn more about macaroni salad I checked some of my cookbooks. In the original "Joy of Cooking" authors Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rambuer Becker say the exact proportions for the salad "are unimportant." This is true up to a point. Add too many vegetables to the recipe and you will be short on dressing. Salad that is stored in the refrigerator for a couple of days tend to absorb dressing and you may have to add more to moisten it.
Summer time makes me think of macaroni salad. In fact, I crave it. Could I come up with a healthier version of the American classic? Yes. Scan the recipe below and you will see it contains more veggies than pasta. Using multi-grain pasta, light mayonnaise and light Peppercorn Ranch dressing also saved on calories. Kids will devour this Creamy Macaroni Salad with Shredded Parmesan Cheese. They may even ask for more!
Ingredients
2 cups milti-grain elbow macaroni, cooked
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
1 cup green pepper, chopped
1 cup petite carrots (straight from package)
1/2 cup scallions (white and green parts), chopped
1 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded
1/2 cup light mayonnaise (or fat-free mayonnaise substitute)
1/2 cup light Parmesan Peppercorn Ranch salad dressing
1 tablespoon fat-free half and half
Salt to taste
Method
Cook elbow macaroni according to package directions until it is al dente. Rinse with cold water, drain well, and transfer to a large bowl. Add grape tomatoes, green pepper, carrots, scallions, and Parmesan cheese. In a small bowl combine mayonnaise and Parmesan Peppercorn Ranch dressing. Thin with fat-free half and half. Pour dressing over salad and combine gently. Cover and refrigerate for a minimum of 1 hour. Makes 6 servings.
Copyright 2010 by Harriet Hodgson

http://www.harriethodgson.com
Harriet Hodgson has been an independent journalist for decades. She is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Association of Health Care Journalists, and Association for Death Education and Counseling. Her 24th book, "Smiling Through Your Tears: Anticipating Grief," written with Lois Krahn, MD is available from Amazon.
Centering Corporation has published her 26th book, "Writing to Recover: The Journey from Loss and Grief to a New Life" and a companion journal with 100 writing jump-starts. Hodgson is a monthly columnist for the new "Caregiving in America" magazine, which resumes publication in August. She is also a contributing writer for the Open to Hope Foundation website. Please visit Harriet's website and learn more about this busy author and grandmother.

Pasta Salad Recipe - Are You Tired of Rice and Potatoes?

Every cook seeks to add some variety to the side dish menu. So often potatoes and rice are the traditional sides appearing on the dinner plate. Why not serve up some delicious tasty pasta salad? This recipe is very easy, and you can alter it to incorporate ingredients you have on hand.

This dish is best served warm, but don't toss the leftovers. They are also good cold, or you can do a quick warm in the microwave. Don't warm too long, though, because you don't want to "cook" the mayonnaise. You can mix up different pastas, using some colored rotini for some flair.
I often mix together traditional "white" enriched pasta along with some whole grain or spinach varieties. My family will eat spinach and whole wheat pasta if it is not the only pasta in the dish, so just toss some of those along with the regular pasta, adjusting the ratios as desired.
This recipe is very flexible, allowing you to utilize leftovers and food you have on hand. Summer garden vegetables work great in this recipe. If you don't have the exact ingredients listed, feel free to substitute items you do have, using your culinary creativity.
Eight ounces of pasta makes about 4-6 side dish servings. You can increase or decrease quantities as needed.
Ingredients:
* 8 ounces of pasta (mix different pastas together such as elbow macaroni, piccolini, and colorful rotini)
* Red and/or yellow bell pepper
* Green onions
* Celery
* Black Olives
* Bacon (4-5 slices per 8 ounces pasta)
* Salt, Pepper, Italian Seasoning
* Mayonnaise
* Freshly grated Parmesan Cheese
Directions:
1. Cook bacon and set aside to drain.
2. Dice all of the vegetables into small dice. Total of all vegetables is 1 cup per 8 ounces of pasta, no need to get too exact here.
3. Assemble the vegetables on a plate, sprinkle with Italian Seasoning (be generous), salt and pepper, and set aside. If you want to spice things up a little, add some crushed red pepper flakes.
4. This pasta dish is best served warm, so finish other dinner preparations.
5. About 15 minutes before dinner, cook pasta according to directions.
6. Drain pasta, DO NOT RINSE.
7. Add vegetables and crumbled bacon to pasta.
8. Add mayonnaise to pasta and stir, use about 1/2 cup per 8 ounces of pasta, or according to taste.
9. Stir gently with rubber spatula.
10. Add grated Parmesan Cheese to top and pepper again (fresh ground black pepper is best).
11. Serve immediately (again, best served WARM).
Be creative and add other ingredients you have on hand. You can add leftover meat, green olives, or small cheddar cheese squares. If you are a gardener, this is a great way to utilize your vegetable bounty. Hot peppers, yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, snow or English peas, and eggplant are delicious in this salad.

Click here to get Easy Printable pasta salad recipes and many more delicious recipe ideas at The Rancher's Daughter