My salad last night (and other recent food-related stuff)

I saw this somewhere recently and wanted to try it, so I mixed it up last night and liked it. I'm posting it here to share and also to remind me if I happen to forget about it (since it was a first-timer, and may not readily come to mind again without a memory prompt).

I mixed together: half a tomato (diced), half a cucumber (diced), 1/2 cup or so of cottage cheese, and 1 green onion (both green and white). I knew I liked all the ingredients separately, but didn't know about combining them -- but it was good. Different, but good.

It made a nice little low-carb, low-cal salad; very filling, very tasty. I try not to do much dairy, so cottage cheese is a little bit of a splurge, but you can't do everything (no grain, no dairy, no meat) all the time -- so I guess I just rotate through them, and in doing so get a lot less of all 3 than I used to. I ate it just like this, but if you wanted I think you could put it on salad greens and eat it that way, too.

Another interesting salad combination I saw this week but haven't tried yet: watermelon, feta cheese, and red onion. Hmm. Several of the comments said it was very good. I have watermelon and red onion right now, and am planning to go to the store today; maybe I can pick up some feta cheese and try it. Feta cheese is not my favorite, but I'm willing to try again.

Oh, and speaking of cheeses and new foods, here's something new I tried and really enjoyed. Okay, let me give you the Aleecia version (the full story): it was about to be the third weekend of celebrating the kids' birthdays. David and I had decided -- celebration, but no more cake. So I wanted something that would be a nice treat and ideally something you could put candles in (so trying to think of an alternative to apple crisp -- yummy and relatively healthy, but not very candle-friendly) -- and saw this idea online: take strawberries and cut them in half length-wise, then fill with a mixture of cream cheese and honey (kind of like you do for devilled eggs). I used a decorative icing thingie for the cream cheese filling, and this looked so pretty on the tray! We put candles in the middle and sang Happy Birthday; it turned out really nice. It is definitely something to do for parties or showers or potluck dinners. It's kind of like strawberry cheesecake but with more strawberry than cheesecake. Very easy, very bite-sized (so in my mind good for big crowds). Well, this doesn't end up using much of the cream cheese (it doesn't take a whole package), so I had this leftover cream cheese-honey mixture. For Jayden, I'm not as worried about breads and dairy as I do for me, because it's okay for her to gain weight, etc. So I had some of the pitas I like to get from Super 1/Brookshire's, and I get the idea to make her a "cream cheese sandwich." I lightly toasted the pita and then added the cream cheese filling (plus a little extra honey for a nice treat); we all loved it. David and I have to keep from eating them; Jayden eats a whole pita of it by herself. If you like cream cheese, I think you'll like this, too. (Think the Toaster Strudels they make with the cream cheese filling; it's like that.) This makes a nice dessert, snack, or even breakfast. It's yummy! You'll have to let me know if you try it.