Sunny, try to think more of veggies instead of salads. Unless your salads consist of mostly broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, tomatoes, etc., they aren't going to do what major veggies will do for you (nutrition and fiber). You know what I mean? If you do have a salad, make it with spinach or spring mix rather than iceberg or romaine lettuce and put lots of chopped veggies on it.
Someone here recommended that I look into vegetarian cookbooks to find veggie side dishes. That helped a lot! I love the turnips and greens dish from Moosewoods' New Classics (I posted it in the recipe forum under Phase 1 side dishes) and it's super healthy!
I had a recipe from Cooking Light that substituted angel hair cabbage (cabbage shredded very fine...you can find it prepackaged by Dole in my area) for shredded lettuce in a sandwich. It was delicious and much more nutritious. I do this often now.
Try making side salads like three-bean salad (with green beans) or broccoli-cheese-bacon salad (both recipes are in the recipe forum). These are easy to toss in a tupperware for a snack or add as a side to a meal. One of the girls on here eats the Overnight Slaw (in SBD cookbook) as part of her breakfast because it's so sweet!
I also found a great couple of coleslaw recipes with apples and nuts that are amazing!
Great way to get cabbage in your diet, and it's a great cancer-fighting veggie!
Try adding veggies to things you usually made without them. I recently read part of Rachel Ray's low carb cookbook. She says she finds it much easier to just reduce the amount of regular pasta she uses in a dish, increasing veggies instead, than to eat low carb pasta. (yuck!
) That idea works for us too. I made a really great mac and cheese with ham recently, but put a ton of steamed broccoli in it, so there wasn't more than a cup of pasta per person on a big plate. It was delicious!
Throw mushrooms, peppers, and onions in your tomato sauce, then put on chicken. Add mushrooms to things. Just get creative!
I agree with Barb too...adding two veggies to your meal, plus a starch, if you are in Phase II, helps you stay full and gives you easy to grab food the next day.
(Barb is one wise woman!
)
You can do this, Sunny...you are obviously doing a great job already!!!
I did post a thread on creative ways to add veggies a while back...I'll see if I can find it and bump it up for you...