I hope you all had an awesome Thanksgiving! We spent it with Shawn's mom, his brother, wife, and their 3-month old baby. It was our first time meeting our nephew- what a curious little dude! He was all smiles and laughter. I'm pretty sure I've stated it here before, I'm not usually a fan of babies... but he captured my heart a little bit - maybe because he's family! I can't wait until he gets a little older though... right now he weighs as much as our cats do. (Okay, I realize we have chubby cats, but still!)

I meant to get this recipe posted before Thanksgiving, but that clearly didn't happen. Oh well, if you still have leftovers in your fridge, give this a try. If you ate them all already, give this a try anyway! It's inspired by a salad I had from Trader Joe's. Their version left a little something to be desired though, so I made my own. I'm a fan of hearty salads - if I'm going to eat a salad, it needs to be filled with all the things... protein, something sweet, something tart, and something crunchy. This salad has all of those things, and it's perfect for this time of year!

Thanksgiving Salad

Makes enough for 4 large salads*

• 3 small heads romaine lettuce**
• 3 big handfuls baby spinach
• 1 pound chicken or turkey breast
• 3 cups brussels sprouts, chopped into quarters
• 2 sweet potatoes, peeled & diced
• olive oil, to drizzle
• salt and pepper
• 3/4 cups sliced toasted almonds
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• lemon vinaigrette***

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lay chicken/turkey breast on a sheet pan- salt and pepper both sides and drizzle with a little bit of olive oil. Do the same thing with the brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes on a different sheet pan. Bake until chicken/turkey reaches an internal temperature of 165°F and until the veggies start to brown and soften, approximately 30 minutes.
Chop the romaine and baby spinach into bite size pieces and toss into a large mixing bowl. Top with chopped chicken/turkey, roasted brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes, almonds, and dried cranberries. Drizzle with desired amount of lemon vinaigrette. Toss the salad until coated, and enjoy!


* If you're like me and just want to have salad ingredients on hand for yourself for the week... I prep the chicken and veggies ahead of time, and store them all in separate containers. Then I can assemble a salad for lunch as needed. I got 4 lunches out of these ingredients, hence the 4 salad yield.

** You can use any salad greens you like - I usually go for arugula or spring mix, but organic romaine was on super sale the week I made this, so that's what I bought!

*** I usually make my own salad dressing, but I was lazy this time around. Besides, why mess with a good thing?