An awesome salad

With A down in Melbourne on weekdays (a fact I may have neglected to report here) I'm left alone to fend for myself. My solution to this last week was to catch up with friends for dinner every night, an endeavour that left me well socialed, but tired, poorer and lardier than before.

Thanks to the Melbourne Cup this week, I'm only "home alone" for 3 days. Tomorrow afternoon I'm heading down to Melbourne myself - and hopefully escaping the deluge that has engulfed Sydney for the last week!!

What I have decided is that these 3 days are going to be the start of Operation "Me Time".

I'm going to take advantage of this time to make healthier meals than I might if I was feeding both A and me, and to cook all the things I love, but that he finds less agreeable. Namely a lot of salads and soups - lucky its soup weather at the moment!! A is gradually being converted to soups and salads, but is not the biggest fan. There's also other things he doesn't eat - like tofu, eggs and spinach - that I'm bursting to cook.

As part of this, I want to use up some of the random ingredients cluttering up our fridge, freezer and kitchen cupboards. I've got tapioca that I bought 4 years ago sitting in the pantry, 2 falafels left over from a Lebanese meal in the freezer, and more dried porcini mushrooms than I can poke a stick at. It's all gotta go!!

Apart from food, other things I want to do with this "Me Time" is continue to clean up the mess that is our kitchen cupboards, second bedroom and the verandah. These feel like never-ending tasks, but I hope I can make a dint in them.

Doing some more study, and working on my honours project wouldn't go astray either!!

Before I go, here's the salad I made tonight:

Yummy chicken, sweet potato and haloumi salad

• Lettuce and rocket leaves
  
• 60g chicken
• 90g baked sweet potato
• 15g grilled haloumi
• 1 tablespoon toasted pine nuts
• 4 cherry tomatoes
• sliced red onion
• dressing: 1 teaspoon olive oil, 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar, juice 1/2 lemon, cracked pepper
  

Very tasty, and very filling - in fact next time I might cut down the portions - especially if I'm eating late.

And right now, I need to finish packing!!