BLT Salad and thoughts on this past week

We have been childless this past week. Kate is at camp until Saturday and Ian has been at Amachi and Appachen's. I went back to work this week.

I had high expectations for a lot of quality time with Mr. Young. Alas that didn't seem to really happen. I mean we did have some fun. We ate out three different times this week: India Palace, Szechuan, and Bucca. That isn't what I had imagined though. I thought we would make wonderful dinners together and take walks around the lake (which he promised), oh and ice cream was also promised. Late nights reading in bed with the cool air blowing in to our room. You get the idea. He got sick one day, so that kind of threw a wrench in my dreams. Since I got my iphone, I like to call Brian on his iphone in the morning when he is downstairs getting ready for work. I ask him very sweetly to come up and cuddle with me. He always says "I love you, and I'll be right up." Well this morning I called four times and he didn't answer! He came up to say goodbye just as he was leaving. I explained my frustration to him and he said he was sorry, he didn't hear the phone ring (because he had it on vibrate). I was not happy as it was and this didn't make this better. He said goodbye and was on his way. Then a few minutes later he called and said he loved me. I still wasn't happy though. When I got home he asked me what was wrong and I frankly told him "I need a little romance!!" A little later I asked him if he thought I was being too hard on him, he said Well, I could use a little help here...you're shooting down all my ideas. We ended up watching a movie and then we made this salad together. The movie was o.k., but the salad was great! We'll make this again for sure. As for the romance...we'll see.

BLT Salad

I found the recipe on Steamy Kitchen, but it seems the original recipe came from Fresh Flavors Fast Cookbook, Martha Stewart Everyday Food. I halved the recipe and used chives instead of green onions. I also threw in an avocado.

4 slices of bacon

1/4 of a baguette, sliced into cubes

olive oil

salt and fresh ground pepper

1/3 cup low-fat buttermilk

3 tablespoons low-fat mayonnaise

2 tsps. apple cider vinegar

a handful of chives

half a head of romaine lettuce, coarsely chopped

Half a pint cherry tomatoes, halved

1 avocado cut into bite size pieces

1. Preheat your oven to 375. Place the bacon in a single layer on 1/2 of a rimmed baking sheet. On the other side of the baking sheet, add the bread cubes and toss with a little bit of olive oil. The bread cubes should take about 15 minutes, half way through baking time toss them. The recipe said the bacon should be done in 15 minutes also but ours took about 25. When the bacon is done crumble into large pieces.

2. Meanwhile in a large bowl, whisk together buttermilk, mayo, vinegar, and chives. Add salt and pepper to taste. Then add in lettuce, tomatoes, bacon and croutons; toss to coat with dressing. serve immediately.

xoxo

Rachel

P.S.

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