Mmmm, Big Salad

I heart big salads. Usually when I'm out for lunch, and sometimes for dinner (Cheesecake Factory), I love ordering the big salad. It's perfect. You get a lot of good veggies, plus usually some chicken breast and cheese, maybe black beans. Just get the dressing on the side and use very sparingly, and it's a healthy treat. If you like salads, that is. Which I do. Sometimes if the salad has enough good stuff on it, I don't even need dressing.

The one thing you can get in downtown Providence that's semi-healthy and filling is something called the Belly at a Mexican place down the street from my office. It consists of a burrito minus the tortilla. I don't get rice and ask for extra lettuce and voila! The big salad.

However, not wanting to spend $7 on lunch every single day, I made my own Belly today: (All I had to take a picture with was my Blackberry and this doesn't look very appetizing. In reality the colors were not this sickly, I promise.)

My Belly (and now my belly (hahahaha)) has about 4 oz chicken breast spiced with garlic, chili powder, salt and pepper; 3/4 C. hydrated and cooked black beans; 2 C. lettuce; 1 oz grated sharp cheddar; a few tablespoons medium salsa; and about 1/4 C. cottage cheese.

The cottage cheese is in lieu of sour cream, because I checked our sour cream this morning and it is not in good shape. No matter how small a container of sour cream I buy, it always goes bad before we use it all. Anyway, I figured the cottage cheese would work because one of my favorite snacks is chips dipped in salsa mixed with cottage cheese. Trust me, it's good.

And I'm very proud to say that I am wearing a white twinset and there is nary a salsa splotch to be found anywhere!