healthy lunching

I was searching for recipes on pinterest.. since I'm a big girl now and get to make all of my own food for both my spouse and I. My criteria about recipes, I have to have at least 1/2 of the ingredients on hand (and I don't have hardly anything on hand), or if it's something new I need at least 2-3 recipes that call for that ingredient.. since we are living on a budget and are only here for a couple months. AND it can't have too many ingredients...budget and laziness. BUT I love good food, and I love to eat healthy. So it's been a challenge. I have a few  recipes that I have picked out (mostly Mexican dishes - burritos, taco salad, spicy tilapia, tostata, etc. - thank you cheap beans and brown rice, and some spaghetti, quinoa, and salad) that I will be trying in the next week, if any are successful I will share them so other young, broke, college couples can make yummy food too!

My first recipe was this salad, Autumn Chopped Salad.

Ingredients
*chopped romaine lettuce
*pears
*dried cranberries
*chopped pecans
* thick-cut bacon, crisp-cooked and crumbled
* feta cheese, crumbled
*Poppy seed Salad Dressing (I like T. Marzetti)
*Balsamic Vinaigrette (I like Newman’s Own Light Balsamic Vinaigrette)

I was already going to the store to restock my lettuce and fruit. I was planning on getting some dried fruit and nuts already, there isn't a Costco which means bacon is out of the questions - I only know how to microwave bacon. The only cheese I had at home was swiss for sandwiches and mexican shredded for tostadas and such. And I have my new favorite salad dressing. So I thought I could pull off a variation of the salad. 

I added strawberries and oranges to  my salad since fruit goes bad so much quicker when there is only 2 of you eating it rather than a family of 6. I probably would have gotten walnuts instead of pecans if they weren't so dang expensive. But the pecans are delicious!! This salad was SUPER yummy and pretty. 

I used (for 1 serving)

*1/2 of romaine lettuce heart 

*1/4 pear

*2 strawberries

*2 orange slices 

*handful of pecans, dried cranberries, and feta cheese

*lightly cover in dressing 

I really love this salad dressing - and I am picky when it comes to dressing. I don't know why Zupas can have such amazing dressing but everything in the store tastes awful. It's bizarre to me. I want to start making all my dressings from scratch but... that isn't going to be happening this summer. I was incredibly happy when I found this. I now pick almost all my  food based on sodium intake (trying to consume the daily value of 2,000mg (and considering that deli meat and pasta sauce tend to average around 500mg, that's not very much). This one had a mere 50mg, and I could read and understand every ingredient. PLUS it tastes SUPER delicious. I was impressed. 

Moral of this long random blog post was that... I am a little bored. Taylor is gone all day and all I have is my computer. Yet I have a long to-do list. I started this while I was eating my salad because I was inspired to take these pictures because it was so pretty. And yes, you know me too well - I ended my lunch with a small leftover marshmallow caramel brownie... so we can rename this post "healthy-ish lunching." 

If anyone has any cheap, healthy, yummy, not too many ingredients, simple recipes then please let me know!