PB Day 15 - A case of the Mondays

Yeah, it's totally Monday.
Most of us hate Mondays because it's the beginning of a week or end of the weekend, depending on if your a half-full or half-empty kinda person...

I hate Mondays because it's Weigh-In night.

One of three things happens to me every Monday:1. I've been a good girl all week and managed to stay on my diet. I wake up Monday morning and am down a pound or so. Smiles for everyone...

2. I have to starve myself Saturday through Monday night to maintain my weight. I wake up Monday morning still up a pound or so, and irritable and sad at the same time. Get out of my way and don't bother me.

3. I don't give a crap what the scales says and vow to start fresh after tonight's weigh-in. Next week, I'll show them!

This week is somewhere in between 2 and 3. Which is the worst of all options...

I have to eat right now because I have a splitting headache...so I'll eat salad. Salad is good for me, right?
I've watched enough Rachael Ray/Ina Garten/Giada DeLaurentis shows to know that you can make salad dressing out of anything. Well, a little Google and...bada-bing, we found a peanut butter dressing recipe.

It's not Rachaels/Ina's/Giada's, it's actually from Southern Living. And, if you're like me, any food that has "southern" or "south" (or any of the respective southern states) somehow involved is going to be good.

Take a large serving bowl and throw in the ingredients: Olive oil, orange juice, peanut butter, ginger, red pepper, honey, salt...



Whisk that all together...

Throw on a bag of salad greens...and maybe some pecans...why not, let's throw on fresh cherries, too...Now, Ina Garten says that we can cover this with plastic, take it out when the guests arrive and mix the dressing in to keep the salad fresh.

Ina also has a florist in her living room setting up her tables with special linens and fresh flowers that all probably cost more than my car.

I have a 3 year old and 5 year old in my living room throwing Jello on each other.

She's caviar, I'm pimento cheese, but I can still use her tips, right?

But I'm going to get some out now to show you how awesome it is...

I'll put the salad on a plate, that's pretty chi-chi for me.

Oh, I want to eat this so bad that I'm shaking...

It's really good. Make sure you use right amount of salt...I had to add more to my taste...

Here's the recipe, go have some for a nice chi-chi lunch.

Cherry-Pecan Salad with peanut butter dressing (Oooo, there I go, getting all Top Chef-y again)

Adapted from My Recipes

For the dressing
1/3 cup olive oil
3 tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp peanut butter
1/2 tsp red pepper
1/4 tsp ground ginger
pinch salt

Mixed salad greens
1/2 cup pecan halves
1/2 cup fresh cherries, halved and pitted

Whisk together the dressing ingredients in a large serving bowl. Add the salad greens, pecans and cherries. Cover and refrigerate until serving.

Using tongs, mix together the salad greens, pecans, cherries and dressing.
Serve immediately.

This is yummy, you can certainly play with the seasonings. As I said, I needed a lot more salt and I also added extra red pepper...just to be spicy.

And hopefully, will not add 5lbs to the scales tonight.