Cucumber Quinoa Spinach Salad and Lake George Vacation

Salads are a great way to recover from a food coma.

Last weekend was our annual vacation to Lake George, NY with my family.   My family and I used to go when I was kid and now we’ve made it a tradition to go once a year as adults with everyone’s families.  We eat, swim (or in my case lay out by the pool), shop, and eat some more.  It is great to get away from reality and relax.  No agenda.  No calorie counting.

Every year I bring a variety of homemade goodies, which always includes cookies of some sort like these chocolate macadamia white chip cookies my husband made.  Loads of cookies and Twizzlers are great pool side snacks.  It’s our thing and it is tradition.  You gotta stick with tradition.  😉  Stay tuned for all the other things we brought this year.

If you’ve never been to Lake George, then I recommend the following things to do:

1. Every morning I get iced coffee at Dunkin Donuts right down the street.  Or more accurately, my thoughtful hubby volunteers to get if for me (even though the short drive involves epic traffic and the DD is crazy busy) while I’m getting dressed or chilling by the pool.  Yes, this is a highlight because coffee is very important.
2. If you like to shop then you must hit the Factory Outlets.
3. It’s so much fun to walk around downtown Lake George where you can hit a variety of shops and restaurants.  It’s always a highlight to see Frankie outside of the House of Frankenstein Wax Museum.
4. You must, must, must go to Martha’s Dandee Cream for the BEST ice cream ever.  We generally hit it more than once during our stay.
5. There are lots of miniature golf spots to chose from, like the Pirate’s Cove (both of them).  I like low key activities and the kids love it too.
6. My favorite thing to do is the sunset cruise with Shoreline Cruises.  My husband and I have done the dinner version of the cruise a couple of times but we prefer to skip the dinner on the boat and eat at one of the restaurants on the lake after the cruise.  (The tickets are a bit cheaper if you don’t do dinner on the boat, so that’s a bonus too.)

There is much more to do, so definitely check out Lake George’s official guide for more highlights.

Now it’s back the real world, which means getting back to a healthy diet and eating salads like this one.  This salad is a bit more complicated than a simple salad that doesn’t involve cooking anything, but it’s totally worth it.  It’s perfect as a side or starter dish, but I enjoyed it for lunch.

Rating:

Here are some other summertime salads.

Olive Salad

Summer Barley Salad

Summer Salad