Caesar chopped salad

We're just gonna truck right on through the Thanksgiving food, alrighty? It feels like Thanksgiving was an eternity ago, we've had so much going on and Christmas is right around the corner. 'Tis the season, ya know?! Pretty soon it's going to be January, which usually displeases me, but this year my January is rocking so I'm not even dreading it like normal. How can you dread a 7 day honeymoon cruise, along with a weekend in KC with my lady friends (with nobody pregnant for once!) and other various social events that I plan on attending in the chilly month that I usually want to pop in the face (if it had a face)...

 

Enough rambling...let's cut to the chase, and by chase, I mean salad. Caesar salad to be exact. Mi favorito (my espanol is rusty). When I first discovered salads when I was younger, Caesar was my love...my one and only, I never strayed from ordering a nice creamy Caesar dinner salad. Until someone told me about the calories in that stuff. A lot of Caesar salads are as calorie laden as a cheeseburger, so you may as well indulge in the greasy burger and fries if you're drowning in fat...nobody wants a fat kid salad, I'm telling you.

 

So I rarely get them in restaurants anymore, because I cringe when I think of the yummy dressings they use and how many calories can actually be in that stuff. Ohhhhhh, it's SO good! Alas, I have found a few skinnier versions of Caesar dressing that I actually really like and don't feel like slitting my wrists from the guilt after consuming. So I go with the reduced fat/calorie brands when I make it at home and have gotten used to them throughout the years. You can't switch back and forth though, people...trust me on this. If you want to like the light versions, you can't be having the full fat versions for treats or you'll never be ok with the light stuff. Same with sour cream, soda pop, and ranch dressing. It just doesn't work...

 

Anyway...I had a craving for some Caesar for Thanksgiving. I thought I would add some pasta to it to make it a little more hearty. Most people don't want salads for Turkey day. And this really worked as a stand alone meal too. Very filling! So here's what I did:

 

1 package organic romaine hearts

1/2 package boiled and chilled cavatappi noodles (these are my fave right now)

fresh shaved parmesan cheese

package roasted chicken breast, diced up

roma tomatoes, diced up

fresh cracked pepper

caesar dressing of your choice

croutons if desired

 

I had all ingredients except the dressing and the croutons mixed up and in the fridge the day before to prevent extra work the day of Thanksgiving.

  

When it's party time, throw in the dressing and croutons and serve! I ate these leftovers at work for lunch that following week and it was delicioso. See how I've spoken like 3 languages in this post? Multi-cultural, that's me. I know one word of a lot of languages...too bad that doesn't count for much in real life. In my imaginary world, it makes me extremely cool though :)