Trying to find a little inspiration this morning. The last few or more like several times it has been beyond painful trying to upload my photos from my camera to my laptop. This morning was no different and really puts a bummer on getting in the mood to want to write or even deal with electronics at all.
Change of scenery has helped a little and I finally got the pictures to load; what a pain in the ass that was. My adorable husbands solution is to buy a new laptop, seriously how about seeing it if it is the $20 SD card first. I googled it; I don’t think it is – insert sad face here!
So I have a couple of recipes to share with you from this past week and I had totally planned on sharing the Tostadas my daughter made but decided to write about the salad my daughter picked out but I made. I am sitting on the back deck; aka the drinking deck after my husband de-pollinated it for us WOW crazy pollen this year. There is a little breeze and the sun is starting to come around to the deck – hence the sunshine salad; no that is not why it is called that. The recipe mentioned that this was sunshine in a bowl.
I think you will like this salad, the peppery arugula is offset by the sweet potatoes and the creamy avocado, the tomato adds a pop of juicy tang followed by fried cheese. It all works really well together. You can have this as a meal or add some protein along the side.
The recipe we got from Yasmin Khan

Sunshine Salad
Ingredients
- 3 medium sweet potatoes
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 large handfuls of arugula
- 18 cherry tomatoes halved
- 1 large Hass avocado peeled, stoned and sliced
- small handful of mint leaves finely chopped / we omitted since we didn't have any
- small handful of basil leaves finely chopped
- 9 ounce holloumi cheese
- vegetable oil
- Kosher salt and black pepper
Dressing
- 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 1/2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest finely grated
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400'F
- Peel the sweet potatoes and slice into wedges, similar to steak fries. Place them on a baking sheet and drizzle with some olive oil. Some salt and pepper. Place in the oven and bake for 30-45 minutes, or until they are cooked but still firm.
- Place all the dressing ingredients in a small bowl with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper and whisk - set aside.
- Once the sweet potatoes are cooked, let them cool on the sheet before putting them in a large serving bowl along with the arugula, tomatoes, avocado, and herbs. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss well to combine.
- Slice the Halloumi aka as squeaky cheese into 8 rectangular pieces. Heat some vegetable oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Fry the halloumi for a couple of minutes on each side until they are golden brown and seared. Arrange them on top of the salad and serve immediately.