Thursday, May 6, 2010

Granny's Diabetic Luncheoun

Okay...the strawberry chocolate cream puffs will be coming up next, but first we better eat lunch. We had a little luncheon today for Cussing Granny, and I really had a wonderful time putting together a menu for it and having her friends over. Needless to say, I took a few pictures of what we had and I hope this may spur some thoughts for any lunches you may have coming up...or better, inspire you to invite some friends over for a social chit-chat. It's always so nice. First of all, I wanted to show just a little touch...Granny loves lilacs. We don't get fresh ones here often, due to the hot-death-life-sucking dessert we live in, so I popped a few silk ones in the front of each plate. That along with some lilac fabric under her nice lace tablecloth. It was a simple yet effective way to add some color to the table without having a huge centerpiece. I think it would be a simple way to add a little charm to any dinner.
We served a simple lunch. One of Granny's favorite salads is a strawberry spinach salad with blue cheese and walnuts. It has a nice light peach balsamic blue cheese and poppy seed dressing, no added sugar and as always, is diabetic friendly. I wanted to make a lunch she could enjoy with her friends, without having any sugar issues come up.

For the salad you will need:
5-7 ounces fresh spinach leaves
1 pint strawberries
4 large chicken breasts (1 1/2 lb), marinated overnight*
1/2 cup blue cheese crumbles
Peach Balsamic Blue Cheese poppy seed dressing (recipe to follow)
Toasted BBQ Walnuts (recipe to follow)

I love to arrange the spinach in a large decorative bowl. You can just toss it in there, but I think it looks really snazzy like this.
Strawberries in season mean wonderful amounts of vitamin C...and luscious sweet fruit. Load up ladies. We also chocolate dipped a few for dessert in a sugar free chocolate. Isn't that perfectly evil and nice of me?

Try to tuck the strawberries into the spinach. I like to bunch them here and there and keep them in a pattern. Eye appeal is important.
Now...nobody panic or freak out, but we had this amazing salad dressing that I adore. It's made with this Peach Balsamic Vinegar. If you don't have it, I do believe it can be ordered online, and it's my favorite by far...next to Lucero's original Balsamic Vinegar.
Peach Balsamic Blue Cheese and Poppy seed Dressing:
3T Lucero Peach Balsamic Vinegar
1T garlic infused olive oil
1T Olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp fresh cracked pepper
6 packets Truvia natural sweetener
1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1T poppy seeds
1T minced white onion
Combine with a wire whisk until smooth.
Grilled Garlic Chicken Marinade:
1 1/2 lb chicken breasts, boneless skinless
1/4 cup Lucero balsamic vinegar
2T minced fresh garlic
2 T olive oil
salt and pepper
In large glass bowl, combine vinegar, garlic, olive oil, pepper and salt. Add chicken and coat well. Marinate overnight. Remove from marinade. Grill on a BBQ or Grill pan until chicken is cooked through 10-15 minutes. Slice the chicken, and cool until ready to serve salad.

Arrange chicken over the spinach...and add some blue cheese stripes if you like. Or you can just toss the cheese on there. Whatever you want.

Toasted BBQ Walnuts
1 cup walnuts
1/2 tsp garlic infused olive oil
In a saute pan, combine nuts and oil. Cook on medium heat 3-5 minutes until well coated. Add the rub and toss until coated and toasted, about one more minute.
Serve with dressing drizzled over salad.
There you go.

3 comments:

FreeIndeed said...

WOW! I got so hungry when I read AND saw this post! It looks fabulous. I am certainly going to try this soon! Thanks so much Tess!

bodyhacker said...

Wow - your strawberry spinach salad looks amazing! Thanks so much for sharing and definitely going to have to try this.

Thanks and look forward to reading more!
bodyhacker

JustJoeP said...

Mouthwatering. Thank you for posting this.