Almond, Clementine & Apple Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

Thank you to CVS for sending items to keep my family heart healthy year round!

This year has been a whirlwind already. I entered the year planning so much for myself and my family, including vacations and travel, experiencing new things, new organizational and time planning goals, and of course personal and combined health goals I wanted to achieve. One of those goals is to take better care of myself and commit to healthier living for my entire family.

This includes meal planning by the week and taking walks after dinner, among other things. Heart disease runs up and down my husbands family history and we both have family members with diabetes. Personally, I’ve been both underweight and now overweight and both extremes can take a toll on your heart. Thankfully we both got a great bill of health on our recent physicals, but why wait until something is wrong before you make a change?

February is heart health month and I got some goodies from CVS to help us maintain our new lifestyle choices. All items are free from artifical preservatives and flavors, and most importantly they are heart healthy!

My husband is always a fan of warm oats in the morning, partially because he knows his family history, so we were happy to see the quick cook steel cut oats from the Gold Emblem Abound line of foods that CVS carries.

When I’m busy working at home, I can snack on the trail mix (which was the first thing that disappeared.. OOPS!) and a bag of raw natural almonds was included as well. I love that the almonds are sodium free because Mr. Harris is sensitive to the taste of salt, so I thought they would be the perfect addition to one of my favorite things in the world.

A salad!

I could eat salads every day. I love the variety you can create with something so simple. You can have all greens, or add some fruit or chicken. It’s so easy to adjust based on what you have on hand. I love to sprinkle almonds or walnuts on a finished salad, so that’s what I already had planned when I saw these Almonds. An almond, clementine & apple salad with lemon vinaigrette to add to the citrus springtime feel of this salad.

I added a few other foods to this salad that offer a lot of dietary benefits, of course this compliments the already heart healthy benefits of the almonds. Did you know that eating nuts can help improve the health of the lining of your arteries? How about the fact that they can help reduce your risk of developing blood clots that can cause a fatal heart attack? Full of fiber, unsaturated fats and Omega-3 fatty acids, among other things, are some of the benefits of eating nuts. So it’s a no brainer to add to your salads, right?

Well apples are full of antioxidants and fiber and they also help to steady your heart rhythm, so I figured they’d be great in a heart healthy salad as well. Clementines are full of vitamin C, calcium and potassium, so they were a no brainer to add to this fun salad for one. I always use a vitamin rich green in my salad, this time I chose romaine lettuce because it is also chock full of healthy benefits. For a bit of color and more health benefits I added red bell pepper and yellow cherry tomatoes to make this salad full of all the good stuff. By making your own vinaigrette dressing you can control the amount of ingredients and you know it’s fresh and free of preservatives.

Almond, Clementine & Apple Salad Ingredients:

• 6 romaine leaves, stems removed then chopped
• 9 slices of cucumber, quartered
• 1/4 medium red bell pepper, cut into small strips
• 1/2 clementine, peeled
• 2-3 slices of a Granny Smith apple, cut into thin slices
• 5 yellow cherry tomatoes, halved
• handful of CVS Gold Emblem Abound Raw Almonds, chopped

Lemon Vinaigrette Ingredients: 

• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1/2 tablespoon dry basil
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Directions:

The thing about salads is that they are so easy to throw together. Literally, you just chop up the ingredients and throw it together, You can pretty it up or just throw it together and it will taste the same. The ingredients listed create one large salad, with a lot of salad dressing to spare for future salads. I so prefer making my own dressing to buying the store made kind.

Just add all the salad ingredients into a bowl and combine all of the vinaigrette ingredients and shake it up in a jar or a cruet and you’re good to go. Pour on as much or as little you like, and enjoy!

Not only does CVS carry their own line of delicious and heart healthy snacks with Gold Emblem Abound, but you can also purchase supplements through their new Radiance Platinum line of products. I received the radiance PLATINUM CoQ-10 Capsules that supports cardivascular and antioxidant health and the radiance PLATINUM Ultra Soya Lecithin Softgels that supports healthy nerve function and heart health.

Between the Gold Emblem Abound products and the supplements available through the Radiance Platinum line of products, CVS has my family covered for heart health, they help make it easy for good choices all year round.

How do you ensure your diet is heart healthy?