Brain Power Salad

A few days ago I made a big bowl of Brain Power Salad for our dinner and a few lunches:

Kind of a lame picture because you can't see all the walnuts, blueberries, goat cheese and avocado that fell to the bottom. But they're there, and this was really good. I baked a salmon filet instead of using smoked, due to the salt. Also subbed goat cheese for the feta. This is almost a non-recipe but I'm adding it to the blog to save for posterity so I remember it myself. Definitely one I will make again. The dressing in particular, with the chia seeds, was very good.

Romesco Garlic Shrimp with Zucchini Noodles

So I had a bunch of free money to spend at Kohl's the other day, and I hit their kitchen section where I rarely go (I don't even think to shop there for BB&B type stuff). Among other random stuff, I came away with an "as seen on tv" handheld veggie spiralizer, the Vegetti:

I tried it out tonight with a recipe for Romesco Garlic Shrimp with Zucchini Noodles.

All in all, we (Steve and I) liked it a lot. It was easy to spiralize the zucchinis -- took no time at all even though this is a handheld cheapie thing. The recipe called for 4-6 zucchinis which seemed excessive so I only used two. I'd probably do at least three next time; they were pretty small too. I'd rather have a good leftover lunch for the next day, too. I've never made (or eaten) romanesco sauce, which has a good heap of almonds in it as its base. It was delicious! Steve thought maybe we kick it up a bit with extra red pepper flakes -- I went light on the chili powder and paprika the recipe called for, thinking it'd be too much, but it could definitely use more kick.

Would really recommend! Zucchini-as-pasta is a decent substitute. Not the real deal for sure... but a healthier knock off.

The kids, well, they had traditional spaghetti.