Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad and a Spring Berry Pie

 

Yay for Spring finally showing her lovely sunshiny face around here!! Yesterday it was in the 60's with glorious sunshine and it felt amazing. We're starting to get more mild days in the forecast...and the grass is even starting to get green. It sure makes my soul happy ☀️

We even cleaned out the grill and got it fired up last night. It felt like a summertime meal. 💚 I had thawed some brats in the freezer that we had gotten at our local meat market. We grilled them up and then sticking to our lower carb plan - we ate them without buns and I didn't even miss it! I only had a 1/2 a brat because I wanted more of the pasta salad. Lol We still put ketchup, mustard and raw onion on our brats though, of course.

😉😋

 I had made up a quick pasta salad with what was on hand to use up some of our veggies. I'll share that recipe below as it turned out really yummy! And to top off our BBQ meal we had watermelon too. We love eating watermelon with tajin seasoning (have you ever tried it that way?). Makes it taste even sweeter. Add a glass of iced tea and it was a meal that truly hit the spot! 

Now on to that yummy salad:

CHICKEN CAESAR VEGGIE PASTA SALAD

I didn't have a set recipe for this - I just made it with things I had on hand and based it on many kinds of pasta salads I've made in the past. So feel free to add what works for you as far as ingredients. But I'll try to share exactly what, and how much, I used. 

I started by boiling 1/2 a box of protein pasta and rinsed it in cold water when it was done and set aside. 

I prepped my veggies:

- cleaned and cut up a stalk of romaine lettuce

-peeled and cut up 2 carrots

-cut up one celery stalk

-cut up some mini peppers

I put all of that in a large bowl and tossed it together. I had some precooked & seasoned chicken skewers from Costco and I took the meat off the skewers and cut them up and put in the bowl too. The pasta was nice and dry by then and I added it in the bowl too. Then I took this low calorie caeser dressing and poured 1/4 to a 1/2 of the bottle over the salad and mixed until it was all coated. I sprinkled on some salt, pepper, dried garlic powder  and oregano over all, along with about 1/4 c. of shredded parmesan cheese. I tossed it all together and put in the fridge to chill until dinner. It was a very flavorful yummy chicken caesar salad with bonus veggies and protein. 

SPRING BERRY PIE

I also wanted to share this recipe for a no-bake pie that I had made at Easter. I have made it before, but wasn't sure if I had shared it here? I like to make this one as it's lower sugar and I make it gluten-free (my brother needs to eat gf and is diabetic). I found it at the website tasty.co 

I will share the full recipe below (it includes the graham cracker crust). But I don't make the crust myself. I buy a gluten-free one in that section of my grocery store. That way my brother can eat the pie too (plus it's a time saver!) You make a cream cheese filling sweetened with natural maple syrup and chill it in the pie crust. Then top with fresh fruit. And you make a sort of fruit jam on the stove and put that over the pie and chill until ready to serve. It's always really tasty and pretty easy overall - and a little healthier. The recipe is listed below. 

Have a blessed weekend ahead! 

xoxo