Rainbow Rice and Bean Salad

My friend gave me this recipe. I love it! It makes a beautiful, healthy, quick, tasty dish.

Ingredients:
3 cups prepared brown rice
3 medium carrots, finely chopped or grated
2 cups cooked black beans, drained
1 cup cooked corn
1/2-1 cup minced fresh herbs packed (cilantro, parsley, dill, or basil)
1/3 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, chopped **I used dehydrated ones and soaked them**
3-4 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2-3 Tbsp. fresh or frozen lemon juice or wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
**I also added lime juice to taste**

Direction:
Mix all ingredients together and toss gently. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm or thoroughly chilled.

I made this for Jay's lunch today and he had a great idea to put this mixture into a tortilla. Since we were short on tortillas he actually used it as a dip for his 'hint of lime tortilla chips'! It was delicious!

Strawberry-Spinach Salad with Lemon Dressing

I LOVE this salad, trust me it is delicious! (The best part are the sugared almonds!!! I leave out the mustard seed.)

Salad:
1 cup slivered almonds, sugared
1 bag (10 oz.) fresh spinach
1.5 apples, peeled and cut into wedges
1 cup dried cranberries
2 cups sliced strawberries

Dressing:
2 TBSP lemon zest
2 TBSP lemon juice
1/4 cup oil
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. mustard seed (optional)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. To candy almonds, wet them and roll in sugar. Bake 10 minutes. Cool.

In a bowl, toss all salad ingredients together. In a separate bowl, combine dressing ingredients. Pour dressing over salad just before serving and toss. Makes 6-8 servings.

Mandarine Orange Jello

This is some good jello salad!!!

Ingredients:
1 box Orange Jello
1 box Vanilla Pudding
1 box Tapioca Pudding
1 big can of Mandarine Oranges
cool whip

Directions:
Put all of the box contents in a sauce pan along with 3 cups of water and bring to a boil. Put into the bowl you'll be serving in and put in the fridge and allow to cool (will take 30 to an hour). Add the cool whip not quite the whole tub. Add the oranges and put in fridge to allow it to firm up.

Apple Snicker Salad

I absolutly LOVE this "salad". It's super easy and delish! I got this recipe from my sister-in-law Kristy and slighty modified it.

4-6 Apples
4-6 (or 7 or 8) Snickers
Cool Whip 1 tub

Cut up the apples into bite size pieces and put into a bowl. Here is where Kristy and I do it differently, I just cut up my snicker bars into lots of different sizes, and Kristy freezes hers then smashes them up, both work. And I don't use a full tub of cool whip either just enough to coat everything well.
This recipe is very flexible with the amount of ingredients you want to use depending on how much you want. I would do 5-6 apples for a normal size. I like crisp apples, like pink lady, but any apples will do. The same goes for the snickers, it just depends how much you want. I like a lot. I use around 5 snicker bars.