Spinach Power Salad

Lunch is one of my favorite meals of the day. It's probably because it's smack dab in the middle of your work day so you get to eat something that tastes great while conveniently kicking your feet up on your desk for a few minutes (at least, that's what I did...). Sounds pretty good, right?

Because I was pretty lazy about making my own lunch or heck, even bringing leftovers the majority of the time, I would end up ordering takeout with my colleagues. And I really thought I was making good, conscious decisions about the meals I would order. Basically, if I ordered a salad from anywhere I would think to myself, "Win!" But as I started to workout more frequently I downloaded the application, MyFitnessPal, so I could log my daily caloric intake. Have you heard of this application? I thought so. Everyone and their mom has heard of this application and if you haven't, you're probably my mom reading this. (The woman has an iPhone5 and an iPad mini - her Christmas gifts - before this she was using her decade old flip phone. Anyhow, she doesn't really know how to use either, which my whole family thinks is totally adorable.)

Anyway, I digress. When I downloaded MyFitnessPal I was mortified when I realized just how many calories these "healthy" salads actually contained. I was lucky to find a salad under 800 calories. 800 calories!! According to the application I should've only been eating 1400 calories a day, which means that breakfast and dinner have to be practically nothing if I wanted to remain within my budgeted caloric intake for the day. (And I wondered why I was so tired after eating one of these so called healthy salads for lunch...It contained way too many calories for one meal.) So I started thinking about healthier alternatives to the already supposed to be healthy salads. And this is what I came up with:

This spinach power salad is a healthier alternative than even that of Panera Bread's spinach power salad, which weighs in at 460 calories. Not too shabby for a commercial salad, but for one you can easily duplicate at home, I still think you can do better. So I'm very happy to announce that my Spinach Power Salad I made at home was 1/3 of the cost and it has less calories sitting in at 229 calories. Do yourself a favor and try this one because that's a difference of 231 calories, which could easily be two glasses of red wine after work. Now I think Panera has started a "Power Menu" (and maybe other restaurants have started a similar version) where your meals don't exceed 400 calories. I applaud them because they're probably making a lot more money reducing the calories in their salad bowls making all of us lunch buyers happy as well. Oh, and if I didn't mention it before, this salad tastes great and it is packed with protein that will get you through the rest of your afternoon without yawning. Enjoy!

Cooking Ingredients:

• 2 cups Raw Spinach (14 calories)
• 1 Boiled Egg (78 calories)
• 1/2 On the Vine Tomato, sliced (7 calories)
• 1 Tbsp. Good Olive Oil (119 calories)
• 1 Tbsp. Red Vine Vinegar (3 calories)
• 1 tsp. Dijon Mustard (4 calories)
• 1 tsp. Freshly Squeezed Lemon Juice (2 Calories)
• Dash of Salt (0 calories)
• Dash of Freshly Ground Pepper (0 calories)
• 1 tsp. Red Pepper Flakes (0 calories)
• 1 Green Onion (2 calories)

Cooking Directions for a Medium Rare Egg:

• Place the egg in a small pot and add water until it reaches just about a quarter of an inch over the egg so it is completely submerged
• Place the pot on the stove and heat over high heat until the water comes to a rolling boil
• Once it reaches a rolling boil turn the heat all the way down to low and allow the egg to simmer for exactly 4 minutes
• Immediately place the egg in ice cold water (by "shocking" the egg it will prevent the inside of the egg to continue cooking) 
• Peel the shell off of the egg after allowing it to cool
• Slice the egg in half and place with the sliced tomatoes and chopped green onion on the bed of spinach

** If you do not like the inside of the egg to be at all runny follow the step by step directions above and leave the egg to simmer for 12 minutes instead of the 4 minutes listed**

Cooking Directions for the Salad Dressing:

• In a small bowl whisk together the olive oil, red wine vinegar, dijon mustard, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes
• Drizzle over the salad and serve immediately