Saucy Chicken Salad

Don't let the title fool you...this chicken salad is not runny at all.  It's just got a kick to it (in the form of a little horseradish) to make it what I'd call saucy.  With summertime strolling into our neck of the woods, I woke up with chicken salad on my mind.  Everyone is so different when it comes to chicken salad preferences.  Some like grapes in it.  Some like dill relish in it.  Some like it with no mayo at all.  Rick and I discussed a couple of ingredients that we felt were essential (it's gotta have celery for some crunch!), but I was still unsure of which direction I wanted to take.  I don't think I've ever really made chicken salad before (or at least anything that stood out in my mind) so as usual, I hit the internet looking for ideas.  I came across two recipes that caught my eye and inspired me to play with them a bit to come up with something worth sharing with the world.

The first one that I liked is almost perfect on its own.  The big problem with it is that I am not a fan of boiled eggs (sliced or diced or whatever) in my chicken salad or potato salad for that matter.  I'm also not crazy about the grapes either.  What really intrigued me, though, was mixing the half and half with mayo for the dressing.  What a great way to kill that overpowering mayo tang and create something that is more creamy!  The second one that I found was from my one of my old stand-by recipe sites, www.myrecipes.com.  Adding a little horseradish to chicken salad would give a unexpected kick to plain ole chicken salad. 

In order to make the whole process go faster, I bought a rotisserie chicken at Publix this morning so that I wouldn't have to deal with cooking any chicken.  Doing so also provided us with some meat to snack on while I was pulling the meat.  For the nuts (gotta have that crunch!), I used chopped walnuts because I had them in the refrigerator.  Pecans would work just as well if not better.

This recipe isn't totally fabulous for my diet (especially with the half and half), but I was really impressed with the final product.  I'm looking forward to having it for lunch during the shortened work week.  I may even share a little bit with Rick. 

Here's what I did....

Saucy Chicken Salad
Ingredients
1 cooked rotisserie chicken, meat pulled from the bones and skin removed
1/3 cup minced green onion
2 celery hearts chopped
the juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Dressing
2/3 cup light mayo
1/4 cup half and half
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
3 tablespoons prepared horseradish

Directions
In a large bowl, mix chicken, green onion, celery and lemon juice together.  Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

In a separate smaller bowl, mix dressing ingredients together.  After the chicken mix has been in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, combine the dressing with the chicken mixture and nuts.  Cover and chill for an additional hour before serving.

Enjoy!

PS:  Sorry for the pathetic excuse for a pic up there, but my desktop has died and our netbook is on its last leg.  I'm relying on my iphone for pics for now.

PSS:  Did I mention that we are engaged????  So excited!!!!!

My new favorite salsa

I'm back from the dead!  Okay, not really dead, but with work and working out (and I went on a diet last year....down 30 pounds!), I haven't made time to blog. Sadly in my "posts" here there are several started ones from last year that were neglected and never finished.  I've decided, though, that I'm going to TRY to do at least one recipe a week. 

Another thing that has caught my attention is pinterest!  I'm sure that you've heard of it, and once I got the hang of it, I realized what an excellent resource it is for all kinds of things!  My favorite thing to do is to search for recipes (Imagine that, right?). Pinterest has totally put in direct contact with other bloggers out there that I would probably never heard of.   My first amazing find was a salsa.  As you may remember, I'm a huge salsa fan, and while I enjoyed the one I made way back when, it was still missing something.  Then I saw a pin for this salsa.  I was a little skeptical of one of the ingredients (the honey) and couldn't believe that I didn't think of another (the cumin).  This one is even easier because it utilitzes diced canned tomatoes along with Rotel tomatoes (always a favorite of mine).  I've made a couple of subtle changes when I've made it for Rick and I or for our neighbors, but it always turns out perfect!  I hope that you enjoy!

Super Easy Salsa
Ingredients
1  14 oz can diced tomatoes
1 10 oz can orginal Rotel
1/2  sweet small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled & smashed
1 jalapeno (sliced)
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
medium size handful cilantro leaves, washed
juice of 1 lime

Directions:
Put all the ingredients in the base of a food processor or good blender and pulse to combine for 30 seconds or so until all the ingredients are finely chopped and salsa is desired consistency.                  

Crab Quiche

Tonight, I made our first quiche.  I had a bunch of left over eggs from Christmas baking, and I decided to try something new to use them.  Sadly, I do not have a picture (even though I got a new camera for Christmas) because it went so fast.  I used this Southern Living recipe as a guide and made a couple of my own changes.  I can't wait to make some more!!!  I hope that you enjoy it as much as we did!

Here's what I did...

Crab Quiche

Ingredients

2 cans lump crab meat, drained and chopped

4 green onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup of 6 Cheese Blend

3 large eggs

1 cup half and half

1 tablespoon Old Bay seasoning

1/2 tablespoon lemon peel (dried)

1/8 tablespoon cayenne pepper

1 frozen pie crust

Olive oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 400F.  Saute green onions and garlic in the olive oil over medium high heat for two minutes.  Add crabmeat, Old Bay, lemon peel, and cayenne pepper for two minutes.  

Whisk eggs and half and half together in a large bowl.  Add crab mixture and cheese to the bowl and mix together.  Pour mixture into pie crust and bake for 40 minutes in the oven.  Remove from the oven and let stand for 15 minutes.

Enjoy!!

Buffalo Chicken Dip

When I went home for Christmas, my stepsister made this really yummy dip for us to munch on before dinner.  It was so good that I had to share it here.  We made a little change to it by baking some extra mozzarella cheese on top of it.  I could've just had it for dinner!

Buffalo Chicken Dip
Ingredients
8oz package of cream cheese
1/2 cup of ranch dressing
1/2 cup hot sauce
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese (with an additional 1/4 cup to sprinkle on top)
2 cans of chicken breast (drained)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350F.

Mix all ingredients except for the extra 1/4 cup of cheese in a large baking dish.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Remove from the oven and sprinkle 1/4 cup of cheese on top.  Return to the oven to bake for another 10 minutes.  

Serve with tortilla chips.

Enjoy!

Salmon with Dijon Dill Sauce

I'm sure that I've shared it hear many times before that I'm a huge dill fan.  I had some salmon in the freezer that I wanted to use, and I was thinking about doing something with dill since it has been a while since we have had it.  While searching on myrecipes.com, I found one for salmon with potatoes and dill which would also use up some potatoes that we needed to use.  Rick wasn't excited over the recipe so I decided to use it as an inspiration.  We baked two potatoes (for 1 hour at 400F), and I made a Dijon Dill Sauce.  Rick isn't a huge salmon fan, but he liked this recipe (always a plus!).  I did, however, overcook it (forgot to set the timer...oops).  Here's what we did...

Salmon with a Dijon Dill Sauce

Ingredients

• 4  6-ounce salmon fillets, skin removed
• 1/2 tablespoon horseradish
• 1  small shallot, finely chopped
• 1  tablespoon  Dijon mustard
• 1/4 cup low fat sour cream
• 2  tablespoons  roughly chopped fresh dill, plus more for garnishing
• black pepper
• salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 400F (if serving with baked potatoes, start the salmon when the potatoes have 10 minutes left).

Combine shallot, Dijon mustard, sour cream, dill, and horseradish in a small bowl and season with salt and pepper as desired.  Chill in the refrigerator.

Season salmon with salt and pepper. Place the salmon on a baking sheet and roast in the oven 10 minutes or until opaque (depending on the thickness of the salmon).

Top with sauce and enjoy!

Chopped Salad with Raspberry Vinegarette Dressing

Yesterday evening, my allergies were totally bothering me, and I was not feeling like cooking dinner.  A funny thing happened, though...I went to Publix and encountered their surprisingly delicious Apron Simple Meals sample.  What got me was the chopped salad.  I had most of the ingredients at home and I did a little substituting (Rick hates blue cheese) and came up with this healthy addition to our steak and potatoes night!

Chopped Salad with Raspberry Vinegarette Dressing

Ingredients

1 romaine lettuce heart, finely chopped

1 cup shredded cabbage (I used it from a cole slaw bag)

2 green onions slicesd,

Crumbled Goat Cheese

1/4 cup flavored, sliced almonds

Fat Free Raspberry Walnut Vinegarette

Directions

Place all ingredients (except dressing) in a bowl.  Toss with desired amount of dressing and serve.

Enjoy!