Tasty Thursday

I made several new recipes this week and wanted to share them with y'all.

I saw this Pesto Salad on I Heart Naptime and thought it looked delicious. I left out the chicken and instead, we marinated a few chicken breasts overnight in Italian dressing then grilled them. We served the salad with the chicken. I think either way works.

Pesto Salad
Ingredients

• 1 pkg bow tie pasta whole wheat or plus
• 1 TB olive oil
• 1 cup basil pesto jarred or homemade
• 1/4 cup Italian dressing (I misread and used 1/2 cup and it was fine)
• 1 cup chicken grilled, can, rotisserie (I left this out)
• 2 cups spinach
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes
• 1/2 cup feta cheese

Instructions

1. Cook the bowtie pasta according to package directions in a large pot of salted water. Drain the pasta and run it under water. Drizzle with olive oil and stir around.
2. Put the pasta in a large serving bowl and stir in the pesto and italian dressing. Add the spinach, chicken, tomatoes and feta cheese. Toss to combine. Salt and Pepper to taste.
3. Cover the pasta and refrigerate. If the pasta seems dry before serving, you can stir in another tablespoon of olive oil

When I organized our pantry awhile back, I realized we had 4 cans of chickpeas, so I looked for a recipe that I could use those in. I found one on Pinterest that looked simple, inexpensive and healthy. I threw this together in 5-10 minutes while the boys played. I thought this was so tasty. I love basil and think pretty much anything with fresh basil tastes good. I plan to make this several times this summer, it's the perfect summer dish. Light & healthy.

Chick Pea & Tomato Salad with Fresh Basil

Ingredients

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

About 1 pint grape tomatoes, halved

25 large basil leaves, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

2 tsp olive oil

1/2 tbsp honey

pinch of salt

Instructions

Toss all ingredients together and chill for at least 20 minutes, allowing all the flavors to merge. Seriously, could it be any easier?

For dessert this week, we had Pumpkin Pie Dip. You can use this for apples, graham crackers and a ton of other foods. I've been using it with low fat cinnamon graham crackers. It's from SkinnyTaste, which is a great recipe website for Weight Watcher recipes. It gives all the nutrional information, along with the points for both the old and new Weight Watcher system. Plus, all the recipes I've tried from this website have been really good.

Pumpkin Pie Dip

Ingredients:

• 15 oz can pumpkin
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/8 tsp cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 6 oz fat free Greek yogur
• 8 oz Cool Whip (I used fat-free)

Instructions
Mix pumpkin with brown sugar, vanilla and spices, blend well. Mix in yogurt. Fold in cool whip and chill in refrigerator until ready to eat.
We also had Asian Noodle Salad earlier this week. I've blogged about it before. If you haven't tried this, you are seriously missing out. It's one of my favorite recipes of all time. It's so good!