Good evening everyone! Can you believe it’s already Wednesday night? I love how the week after a holiday weekend flies right by. Plus work has slightly calmed down for the moment (though it is going to pick right back up again next week- ugh) so I had a great day Smile

. Dinner was another amazing salad that you must try. Seriously, I know I say that a lot but it really is so good! Gah!

Before I tell you about dinner though, let’s go over my workout!

Workout

When I woke up this morning I was exhausted again because I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night. I kept having anxiety dreams about work that I couldn’t cross anything off my to-do list. In fact, in one of my dreams I even planned how I would blog about time-management. Isn’t that nuts? I guess I was really stressed. Anyway, because of my lack of a peaceful night I had a difficult time waking up this morning and skipped half of my workout and just ran a mile with Jack, as I did yesterday. However, I made up for it when I got home by running to and from the dog park after work (another 2 miles) and doing a few crunches/leg workouts while watching TV.

I can already tell my jogs with Jack are going to get more difficult as the weather heats up. By the end of our evening run Jack was lagging behind on his leash (he never does that!) and I was drenched in sweat.

Yuck! I‘m not sure what we’re going to do when it gets to be really hot in July and August. Ew.

Recipe

Dinner tonight was delicious. I was so excited to be eating such a flavorful salad (me? excited about a salad? Idk who I am these days) and could not stop myself from slowing down. By the pace I ate this thing you would have thought I was a starved child. Not so, just a girl with a tasty dinner.

I found this recipe yesterday on Our Best Bites when I was researching my chicken orzo summer salad recipe and I was so intrigued by the ingredients. This delightful summer salad features mango, avocado, steak, and an Asian dressing. The flavors really came together and I loved it! Here’s how I made it…

First I assembled the Asian dressing which doubled as both the marinade and the salad dressing. It was made from orange juice, soy sauce, lemon juice, ginger, garlic, brown sugar, sesame oil, and olive oil. Every time I make these Asian sauces I’m amazed at how simple and delicious they turn out. I was a fan.

I reserved about 1/3 cup of the sauce for the dressing and added the rest into a Ziploc bag a small piece of skirt steak. I let the steak marinade in the sauce for about an hour, although the original recipe suggests leaving it in the marinade for much longer. While I’m sure this would have helped pump up the flavor even more, I didn’t have enough time and thought it tasted delicious with only an hour in the marinade.

When I was about 30 minutes away from cooking the steak, I took it out of the refrigerator and allowed it to come up to room temperature. Then I set the oven to broil and placed the steak on a baking rack on top of a foil-lined cookie sheet. I seasoned the steak with salt and pepper and let it cook for about 5 minutes.

I let the steak rest for a few minutes while I got everything else ready so the juices wouldn’t leak out when I cut into it.

Next I assembled equal parts romaine lettuce, arugula, and spinach in a large bowl. Then I chopped up a mango, an avocado, and half a red onion and added them to the bowl with the greens.

When the steak was done resting I cut it into pieces on a diagonal and added it to the bowl along with the reserved salad dressing. I gave everything a good toss and topped it with some goat cheese.

The creamy avocado tasted delicious with the tender steak and the mango brought a nice sweetness to the plate. It was also super filling- I was only able to eat about half of what’s shown above. The rest will be saved for leftovers, but I’ll probably add a bit more lemon juice to make sure the avocados don’t turn brown. Or I could just eat it later as a midnight snack Winking smile but I’ll try to save it!

Asian Steak & Mango Salad

Recipe type: Entree

Author: Chelsea Eats Treats (Adapted from Our Best Bites)

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 5 mins

Total time: 20 mins

Serves: 2

This steak salad features creamy avocado and sweet mango and comes together with an Asian dressing.

Ingredients

1/4 cup orange juice
3 tbsp. lemon/lime juice
3 tbsp. soy sauce
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 tsp. grated ginger
1/2 tsp. finely minced garlic
3 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. sesame oil
1/2 lb. skirt steak
1/2 red onion, chopped
1 mango, chopped
1 avocado, chopped
lettuce of choice (I used spinach, arugula, and romaine)

Instructions

Combine first eight ingredients (through sesame oil) and whisk together in a small bowl. Reserve 1/3 cup of the mixture for salad dressing and add remaining liquid to Ziploc back with steak. Allow to marinade for at least an hour.
Bring steak up to room temperature and remove from marinade. Grill or broil on high heat for about 5 minutes or until steak is done to your liking. Allow steak to rest before cutting.
Meanwhile, combine diced mango, avocado, and red onions to lettuce mixture. Mix well.
Slice steak on a diagonal and add to salad mixture. Top with reserved dressing and toss to combine.
Sprinkle with goat cheese, and enjoy!

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Please tell me you guys will try this salad! It’s so good! What are some of your favorite salad recipes? I’m still trying to get into eating them (I always used to hate them) so I feel like I’m way behind in the salad department.

Also I just got a new plugin for displaying recipes. What do you guys think??

Hello everyone! Happy Wednesday! I am starting to notice that every week when I write my WIAW posts I am insanely busy at work. I used to think Thursdays were there really busy days around here, but I guess it depends on what projects I am working on. Anyway, I’ll keep this brief so I can get back to ~~being a slave~~ work.

If you’re new around here, WIAW stands for What I Ate Wednesday and it documents what I ate for a whole day. The idea was started by the ingenious Jenn over at Peas and Crayons and it’s a fun thing to participate in each week so you can keep track of your eating habits. So, without further ado, here’s a compilation of everything I ate yesterday!

1. My morning started out with a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats cereal with fat free milk. This is one of my favorite breakfast cereals because it has a lot of fiber but doesn’t taste like crap. I first bought it when my Fooducate app (everyone needs to download this app!) showed me that it was a better choice than many cereals, and I’ve been buying it ever since! It also fills me up for the entire morning, which I know from experience that a lot of cereals don’t (at least for me). I’ve tried switching up my cereals a bunch of times, but this one always finds its way back onto my shelf. It’s a keeper!

2. For lunch I had another staple for me: turkey breast on a whole wheat sandwich thin with reduced fat American cheese and mustard. I also, not surprisingly, at this with a handful of raw almonds from Trader Joe’s, pretzel twists, and yogurt-covered pretzels for dessert. I know, I know, this is a very boring lunch and I eat it almost every day, but I like it! And that’s all that matters, right?

3. Midway through the afternoon I was feeling hungry again so I munched on a banana. I was happy that I remembered to bring one to work because sometimes if I’m running low on fruit or rushing out the door, I forget. Nom nom nanner

4. I also sipped on half a bottle of All Natural Nantucket Nectars Apple Juice. I didn’t drink the whole bottle because I was saving the rest for later (mostly because there was too much sugar in it for me to consume in one serving), but the juice gave me a quick boost of energy when that end of the day drag started creeping up on me.

5. Apparently I was really tired at work because I also munched on two Hershey kisses. These kind are the air delights, which have more air and less chocolate so they kind of break down when you eat them. They taste pretty similar to the regular ones but are only 200 calories for 11 of them. Yes, I said 11. Who eats 11 Hershey kisses in one sitting anyway?? For two little kisses it’s only about 35 calories, which is not bad at all if it cures my chocolate craving.

6. For dinner I had Chicken Orzo Summer Salad with asparagus, tomatoes, and bell peppers. If you missed this recipe yesterday you should check it out immediately. It. Was. Awesome.

And that concludes today’s WIAW post! As my friends will tell you, it’s a good thing I didn’t decide to write a What I Ate This Weekend post because it would have included a ton of fattening foods like chicken tenders and pizza. Ugh! I’m trying to squeeze a lot more fruits and veggies into my meals since we’ve been back, and last night’s salad definitely helped! Hopefully I can keep the streak going

How do you guys recover from crazy weekends? I’m thinking a detox shake might be in order. You should see all the greens I picked up yesterday. Oy!