Crunchy salad

I found this product at Trader Joe's. It's called "Healthy 8 Crunchy Salad"  It includes carrots, broccoli, jicama, green peppers, cabbage, radish and some other stuff. It is very crunchy. It is pretty good with just olive oil, lemon and salt, but super crunchy. Not so great for TMJ sufferers. But I decided to make a meal with quinoa and chicken. 

Pictured left is the plain salad. I think it's less than $3.

Pictured here is my dinner. Blogger is rotating my photos but for food it doesn't matter much. At any rate, I cooked quinoa, didn't wait long enough for it to cool, mixed it in with the salad and as little olive oil as I thought necessary, as well as some rice wine vinegar. I also added a good amount of salt. You could certainly add any number of other spices or use different oils or vinegars. I like the mild flavor of rice wine vinegar. After this photo was taken I added some beans. Edamame are good, or black beans. Beluga lentils (available pre-cooked at TJ's) are also a nice companion to quinoa. 

The hot quinoa softened the veggies a bit, which I kind of enjoyed, especially with my TMJ issues, but it does make the jicama not quite as crisp. 

I pan cooked chicken breasts with a heavy top on a non-stick skillet. I then deglazed the pan with a bit of butter, balsamic glaze, mustard and a little water. Very tasty. Somehow, I find these very healthy salads to be not so filling. I guess my portion size is just unrealistic. I had to go eat more later in the evening. 

But that was a pretty fancy looking and tasting dinner that took just about 15 minutes to make.