"Chicken" Southwestern Salad and Pierogies Alfredo

Ah, it's Monday once again and the month is already halfway over! I'm not going to lie, it's nice to have these winter months go fast. We've managed to keep ourselves busy, but I need some sun! I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day. We ended up having a great roast dinner with the family. Nothing outrageously romantic, but I definitely got to spend my day with the people I love!

Do you remember this little box of goodies I got last month?

Well since then I put the Alfredo sauce and salsa to good use. Here are some of the ways I've used them.

The alfredo sauce was probably the hardest for me. I'm normally not crazy about Alfredo. I always find it a bit bland, thick and well, fattening! So I actually made these Pierogies for my kids, who happily chomped them down. I just cooked some store-bought pierogie in a large skillet, and then tossed them with the Alfredo sauce until warm and slightly bubbly. The sauce is actually not bad, it has a lot of flavor and I believe would make any alredo lover happy.

My second review is the salsa. I LOVE salsa. It's one of my favorite condimints and great for parties. My favorite kind of salsa is fresh, nice and salty with a lot of fresh cilantro and just a bit of heat. The Newman's Own salsa was delicious, but a different tasting salsa than I usually seek out. It was more of a smoky-sweet flavor, but it had great chunky tomatoes in there and a nice freshness to it. I have mostly been dipping into this with tortilla chips (the multigrain ones are my favorite), but I also used it for this salad.

Have you ever mixed Ranch dressing with salsa? It's actually very delicious, and cuts the fat in half. That's exactly what I did with the dressing for this salad, I also added a squeeze of lime and some chopped cilantro. The Newman's Own salsa was perfect for the dressing and made every bite of my lunch delicious (along with my Diet Coke of course). For the salad itself, I used a spring mix, black beans, chopped cilantro and scallion, tomatoes and shredded cheddar. Corn and olives would also be wonderful, but I didn't have either this time. But my favorite part of the salad was the "chicken"...

And I wasn't even asked to review this product, but seriously, this stuff is fantastic! It's a meatless chicken patty, which normally don't leave me very impressed, but if you were to just serve this to me on a sandwich, without saying anything, I would eat every bite thinking it was chicken. It's so tasty, and has a fraction of the fat of a normal breaded chicken patty. And since I have to have some sort of meat on my salads, I am in love with these things!

And there is my review! So far I've been very happy with the Newman's Own product. Stay tuned for more reviews and have a very happy Monday!