Recipe Idea Shop

Welcome to Recipe Idea Shop, Simple Recipes for Healthy Living

Hello. Welcome to Recipe Idea Shop. Thanks for visiting. It’s Lois at Recipe Idea Shop, the simple recipes for healthy living website that my husband Don and I created.

I Healed Myself With Food

Lois Carter Crawford in 2011 (L) and again in 2017 (R)

Me in 2011 (L) and again in 2017 (R)

Many people have told me they are inspired by my story. Here’s the short version: I was fat and in pain. I couldn’t sit, stand or walk without pain. Inflammation contributed to a heart attack. Then I took charge of my health by changing what I eat (but I didn’t “go on a diet”) and the pain began to go away. The pounds just slipped off when I figured out what foods were causing my pain. I share my secrets here on Recipe Idea Shop. “How I Healed Myself With Food,” explains how I changed my life by healing my gut and losing 40 pounds without going on a diet. I encourage you to read it….

Watermelon Olive Mint Salad With Feta Is Salty & Sweet!

Watermelon Olive Mint Salad with Feta, such a delightful summer salad.

Hi. It’s Lois at Recipe Idea Shop, telling you about an awesome summer salad, Watermelon Olive Mint Salad (with feta cheese). The kalamata olives made this salad the best watermelon salad I have ever had. It was so good, I ate the whole bowl for lunch!

Recently, I have been focused on using mint in everything because my potted spearmint is growing in leaps and bounds. Plus, I really like the herb. I prefer spearmint to peppermint, but I like both. Which do you like best? Mint means summer to me. It’s refreshing and satisfying. The Mediterranean Diet uses a lot of mint. Have you noticed this? Mint with lamb, eggplant, watermelon, beans. So many uses. I also make a simple Iced Mint Tea. It’s refreshing and caffeine free. Yum!

This Watermelon Olive Mint Salad with Feta recipe is similar to Watermelon Cucumber Mint Salad, which is also super good, but I like today’s recipe too because the kalamata olives add an interesting, salty flavor to the dish. I looked online to see how others make similar salads and saw that some include kalamata olives. What an inspiration! Watermelon Olive Mint Salad is a little bit sweet and a little bit salty with a hint of mint. What a delicious combination….

Watermelon Cucumber Mint Salad with Tomatoes and Feta Is the Best Watermelon Salad (IMHO)

Watermelon Cucumber Mint Salad with Tomatoes and Feta. Light and refreshing. Surprisingly filling. Delightful!

Hi. It’s Lois in the kitchen at Recipe Idea Shop, talking about Watermelon Cucumber Mint Salad. OMG. I don’t usually use the abbreviation OMG, but this is one salad that deserves it. This Watermelon Cucumber Mint Salad with Tomatoes and Feta is REALLY good. And it came about because I had some leftover watermelon.

You see, our oldest daughter and family went home, and there we were, left with half a watermelon. We had it in a fruit salad; I ate slices of it at a few meals, and I still had two cups of diced watermelon left! So I looked up Watermelon Feta salads and decided to combine the ingredients of several that I found. Simple. It took less than 15 minutes to make.

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Easy Blueberry Crisp Recipe With Fresh Blueberries So Tasty

Easy Blueberry Crisp Recipe. So tasty. People will think you worked hard. But it’s super easy.

Hi. It’s Lois at Recipe Idea Shop, telling you about the scrumptious Easy Blueberry Crisp Recipe I made and we ate yesterday. Wow. Good stuff. And so simple. Not so good for you, though, unless you eat about half of what I ate. Before analyzing the nutrition, I thought this recipe should serve six. I just figured out the nutrition label and it’s obvious, that’s not a good idea. Try dividing it into 12 servings. But it was SUPER delicious.

The nuts and the butter make the Blueberry Crisp high fat. You could make it healthier by cutting the nuts in half (1/2 cup instead of one cup). I used about one and one-third cups of sugar, and that can be cut in half, too. (Did you know you can generally cut the amount of sugar in half with no ill effects on the recipe?)

I don’t know why I was surprised. It’s about the same amount of filling you would put in a pie, and I would cut a pie into 12 pieces. I combined two recipes to make this Blueberry Crisp, taking the best parts of both: Apple Crisp and Blueberry Crumbly Top Pie. Both are delicious. The garnish of candied ginger adds a little zing when you eat it.

Next time, I’ll do better. But it is SO tasty. It won’t go to waste (but it will likely go to my waist–just kidding). You can do this. It’s a simple mix, dump and bake recipe….