salad

Summer Dinner Salad with Chicken and Green Beans

So there is a dish of leftover rotisserie chicken in my fridge.  Hot days mean I prefer no cooking whenever possible.  Something cool and refreshing like a salad would be nice; top with some chicken and you have a delightful meal.

Let me share a salad I made with the veggies in my fridge and some of that tender tasty chicken, my easy recipe is at https://myworldwithoutwheat.wordpress.com/2015/06/13/hot-day-slow-cooker-rotisserie-chicken-revolution/ or buy one if you prefer.  Use a salad dressing you enjoy but I want to give you my favorite recipe for vinaigrette; I keep a jar of it in the fridge and generally my company requests it for salad hands down over any bottled store gf dressing.

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Chunks of plump rotisserie breast meat ready to cut up into smaller pieces for salad.

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Angie’s Supper Salad (for one; double for two)

A big handful of fresh garden greens: I used loose leaf ones from the garden.  Use what you prefer but please, no ice burg!

2-4 radishes, cut into thin slices

Half an avocado, cut into it to create cubes and scoop out with a spoon

¼-1/2 cup slices of European cucumber; I like to cut them into half moons

1 stalk celery cut into thin half moons.

1/3 cup chick peas

½ cup diced rotisserie chicken

½ cup fresh green beans, steamed for 3-4 minutes until tender crisp; cooled

Directions:

I arrange the lettuce on a dinner plate.  Top with the radishes, cucumber, celery and then the avocado and chick peas.

Put the diced chicken on top and then the green beans; see picture!  Pour dressing lightly over the salad. Enjoy!

Notes: don’t cut the chicken into tiny or huge pieces; make them bite sized.  Don’t overcook the green beans. Swap out anything you despise for a veggie you prefer.   This is a good flavor combination though so if you like these vegetables you should adore this salad.

Vinaigrette Dressing:

Here is my basic vinaigrette recipe.  You can alter it to your tastes and leftovers keep for several weeks in the fridge.  I use one of those Good Seasoning’s jars but add my own ingredients. You can use any jar with a tight lid and measure in the ingredients.

cruet

Fill it to the vinegar line with red wine vinegar, not cheap stuff (1/4 cup)

Add some filtered water to the water line (about 1/3 inch more or 2 tbsp)

½ tsp Dijon mustard or whole grain mustard

½ tsp sea salt

¼ tsp dried thyme or oregano

one garlic clove (peeled and mashed down a bit to release flavor)

1 tsp mayonnaise

¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper

½ tsp sugar or 1 tsp. honey

Top off with some extra virgin olive oil, stop a bit before the oil line and finish it with lighter olive oil (total of ½ cup plus 1 tbsp.)

Shake it up really well.  It tastes best at room temperature. Try to remember to make it early so you can let it marinate for at least an hour before you use it.  Keep leftover dressing in the refrigerator. The mustard adds snap and the bit of mayonnaise helps the dressing stay emulsified (fully blended) longer than it would without the mayo.

Use the veggies you have and don’t sweat the proportions but don’t put too much of any one veggie in; you want them to be like treasures to be discovered in the nest of fresh greens all lightly coated with your tasty vinaigrette.  If you prefer another dressing choice I recommend trying to make your own green goddess dressing; lots of versions on various cooking websites like foodnetwork.com.  Make yours full of fresh herbs and it will be delightful with this salad.

Be creative and have fun making healthy and yummy dinner salads that will satisfy your appetite and keep you feeling great!

Chicken Salad, Two Ways…Too Delish!

Chicken salad is a pleasant meal on a hot evening. Cool, easy to construct and it can be varied in many ways.  I made two new versions in the past week or so and wanted to share them.  The chicken was some oven roasted chicken thighs I cut up cold for the salads.  Use whatever kind of cooked chicken you prefer.  If you buy rotisserie chicken be aware that most is not gf; ask or check online.  It can be so convenient on a hot summer day but be sure it is safe for you.  For those of us with celiac disease, spice blends sometimes contain wheat flour and also some rotisserie chicken is coated with spice blends mixed with flour.  I think Costco has gf rotisserie chicken.

I like fruit, particularly grapes, in my chicken salad but I didn’t have much on hand so I went with what produce was in the fridge.  I often have mine with lettuce, I am guessing it would be great on gf toast if sandwiches are your preference. This week I served sauteed spinach with asparagus as my side dish; no starch; makes all my low carbing friends extra happy.

Last November I posted a similar recipe – actually turkey salad but it would be tasty made with chicken.  It was the classic style with grapes and walnuts dressed up with an addition of avocado slices and pomegranate seeds.  Hard to find those ruby seeds right now but blueberries might make a great substitute.

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Chicken Salad: Variation 1 – with avocado

(Makes 2 servings)

1 large chicken thigh, skinned, cut off bone into small chunks

1 small stalk celery cut in small cubes

1-2 tbsp. minced shallots or red onion

2-3 tbsp. light mayonnaise – I prefer Hellman’s

1 tsp. red wine vinegar

1 tsp. Dijon mustard

1 small avocado, cut in half, remove seed and cut flesh in cubes

1-2 tbsp. coarsely chopped walnuts

Directions; cut everything up. Place the mayo, vinegar, mustard and salt/pepper to taste in a mixing bowl; mix.  Add the rest of the ingredients, stir gently: you don’t want to mush up the avocado.  Serve with fresh loose leaf lettuce.

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Chicken Salad Variation 2 –   I used cherry radishes and raw zucchini but you could use any veggies you enjoy.

(2 servings)

1 large chicken thigh, skinned, cut off bone into small chunks

1 small stalk celery cut in small cubes

1-2 tbsp. minced shallots or red onion

2-3 tbsp. light mayonnaise – I prefer Hellman’s

1 tsp. red wine vinegar

1 tsp. Dijon mustard

3 to 5 fresh radishes, cut off ends and cut into thin rounds

1/3 to ½ cup small cubes of raw zucchini

1-2 tbsp. coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions; cut everything up. Place the mayo, vinegar, mustard and salt/pepper to taste in a mixing bowl; mix.  Add the rest of the ingredients, stir to mix.  Serve with fresh loose leaf lettuce.

Notes: you could use 2 smaller thighs if that is what you have and the dressing mixture is fluid; can use more or less mustard, vinegar, and mayo; spicer with more mustard plus some like the mixture almost dry and others want a moist chicken salad.  Enjoy it in an avocado half or in a hollowed out tomato for a fancy luncheon entree!

Micro Greens Are In My Salad!

microgreensMicrogreens…what the heck is that?  Well…it is just basically sprouts grown in dirt.  Today for my lunch salad I used some baby kale and the first of my micro greens which I started a couple weeks ago.  As well as some burpless cucumber and cauliflower.  I poured some homemade olive oil vinaigrette over it.  It was awesome!

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This post is a revised version of one I posted last May. Being as it is still too cold to even plant my peas I am very glad for my microgreen crop which is growing in a tin can that once held bamboo shoots! Just poke a few holes in the bottom and you have the perfect shallow container to grow them.

I got my seed mix from superseeds.com a/k/a Pinetree Seeds of Maine, a family business which has been around since 1979.  I have found it to be a great place for inexpensive, good quality seeds and plants.  I get most of my seeds there. They happen to have a book on sale there about microgreens; see picture in this post.

Anyhow, last winter I bought a packet of these microgreens from Pinetree. I chose the kitchen sink variety; a mixture of many greens and veggies.  I planted them 1/3-1/2 inch deep in seed starter medium.  Watered them well, and waited. In just 7-8 days the first shoots appeared.  I made one for my neighbor Grace who’s house is warmer than mine and hers sprouted in only 4-5 days! I was thrilled with the more than 95% germination rate.  That meant that my pot was packed solidly with tiny shoots.  Maybe a tad too tightly……. I put them in the kitchen window sill.  Watered them almost daily and turned them around every other day. Some grew extra fast; pea shoots that were nearly 2 inches taller than the rest of the plants.

Grace’s plants grow much faster in her warm kitchen and were soon ready to snip but I had a bit of a time getting her to see that they were for eating now! Grace, a retired florist is elderly and must not have heard my initial directions fully as she thought they were for planting out in the garden.  Eventually she took my advice and snipped off the pea shoots which were like 6 inches tall and enjoyed them in salads. micro greens, orchids, lemon coolers 009

In less than three weeks I was getting out my kitchen scissors and snipping off a section of my shoots to toss on a just made salad. This boosted the nutritional value of my salad considerably.  Not to mention the interesting flavor of all those tangy sprouts!

Sprinkled on my salad they added lots of phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals.  They are a great flavor booster for your side or main salad.

Phytonutrients are what you say?  Well, one definition, courtesy of Wiki links is this:

The term is generally used to refer to those chemicals that may have biological significance, for example antioxidants, but are not established as essential nutrients.[1] Scientists estimate[citation needed] that there may be as many as 10,000 different phytochemicals having the potential to affect diseases such as cancer, stroke or metabolic syndrome.   From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytonutrients.  FYI: Wiki Links uses phytochemicals as a synonym of phytonutrients.

According to medterms.com:

Currently, the terms “phytonutrient” and “phytochemical” are being used interchangeably to describe those plant compounds which are thought to have health-protecting qualities.

Anyhow, definitions aside, microgreens are chock full of those healthy phytonutrients as well as crunch and flavor.  A small handful would be perfect in a spring salad or on top of a burger.

So, if you are not much of a gardener but want fresh salad stuff that is cheaper, fresher and healthier for your body than you can buy just about anywhere, get some packets of microgreens and start planting!

If you don’t have any pots lying around most any container with drainage will do.  I used a shallow empty tin can from oriental veggies. Last winter I used a half and half container scrubbed clean and laid on its side with the uppermost side cut off and a few holes punched in the bottom.  I filled it with potting soil.  Do avoid soil mixtures with Miracle Grow in them.  In a few short weeks you will be able to cut and enjoy your own super sprouted greens. Go forth and sprout!

Two Fantastic Winter Salads

Winter is not known as the season for great salad but it could be! I am giving you two salads for this post. Try your own blends but it is best not to throw everything in the fridge in it.  Try to be selective and highlight one or two ingredients.  Simple ones I like have only three – five ingredients and I mostly use my homemade vinaigrette dressing.   Salad can be pretty healthy and fairly low in calories yet high in nutritional value if you avoid fatty dressings.  These are basic recipes which you can tweak depending on the ingredients in your fridge.   Here are two February versions of my winter salad. Avocados are really good for you as are the celery and pomegranate seeds.

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Super Winter Salad (serves 1)

½ an avocado

1 celery stalk

3-4 leaves of green loose leaf lettuce

2-3 tbsp. fresh pomegranate seeds

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Or try a very different but still yummy winter salad which shows off citrus flavor and color:

Citrus Fennel Salad (serves 1)

1 inner stalk of celery cut in 1/3 inch rounds

1 navel orange

¼ cup fennel bulb, cut in ¼-1/3 inch slices

cara cut

Peel the orange, either by hand or using a paring knife.  Cut across into rounds about ¼-1/3 inch across.  Cut again across into halves.

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Fennel has a sweet crunch to it, faintly tasting of licorice, kinda sort of and it marries really well with citrus.  I also like to use blood orange or cara cara navel oranges in this recipe.  Even grapefruit slices are great.  Cara cara oranges have an interesting orange-pinkish cast to the fruit and a lovely sweet flavor.  The local Giant grocery store has them on display right now.  You can also mix two citrus in your salad; a navel and a blood orange.  Fantastic!

cara cara orange blood orange

Finishing directions for both salads:

Place the salad ingredients in your salad dish; I have some very low sided ceramic bowls I got a long time ago that I love for salad. Then sprinkle the salad with vinaigrette which you just shook up one last time! Please don’t add too much salad dressing or you will have soggy salad.

Margie’s Vinaigrette

I named this after my older sister who passed away nearly two years ago.  She made fantastic vinaigrette.  Mine is not quite like hers but close enough to masquerade as it.  She would approve….

My preference is to use one of those Good Seasoning’s salad dressing jars but I add my own ingredients, if you don’t have one, use a pint jar; the main thing is a tight fitting lid.  Fill it to the vinegar line with red wine vinegar, not the cheap store brand (skimpy 1/4 cup).  Then some filtered water to the water line (about 1/3 inch more or two tbsp.). Next I add ½ tsp Dijon mustard, ½ tsp sea salt, ¼ tsp dried oregano, a sprinkle of dried thyme, one garlic clove (peeled and mashed down a bit to release flavor), 1 tsp mayonnaise, ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper and ½ tsp sugar. Then add extra virgin olive oil, stop a bit before the oil line and finish it with lighter olive oil (1/2 cup plus one tbsp of combined olive oils).  Shake it up really well. Then shake it some more, you need to get the mayo to blend in as completely as possible. It tastes best at room temperature and plan ahead – let it rest for at least an hour before you use it the first time.  Keep it in the refrigerator if there is any left over, lasts like a month in there. The mustard adds snap and the bit of mayo helps the dressing stay emulsified (fully blended) longer than it would without the mayo.  If your salad is delicate and you don’t want as much olive oil flavor use only mild olive oil and skip the EVOL.  If you chill the dressing you will need to let it warm up before using it; ten seconds in the microwave can help with that process.

Note: You could up the nutritional value with a few almonds or walnuts if you like nuts in your salad.

More thoughts: I make any number of salad combos.  Two of my favorite ingredient combinations are: shredded carrot, sliced radishes, chickpeas, romaine and half rounds of European cucumber or a mixture of torn kale leaves, shredded raw Brussels sprouts, scallion rounds and julienned raw summer squash.  Both mixtures are great with this vinaigrette.

Last thought: I avoid tomatoes in winter although some of the grape tomatoes are pretty tasty; use them if you feel the need for tomatoes.

So, go get your healthy green on and enjoy a fruity salad, even in the winter.

Turkey Avocado Salad: Terrific

The turkey is coming, juicy and succulent.  And it is logically followed by a mountain of leftover meat.  Once you have enjoyed a hot gravy covered sandwich the big question is what to make out of the rest of the bird.  The other day I made oven roasted chicken pieces and found myself with one last leftover piece.  I decided to make a salad out of it.  What I created was so tasty I instantly knew what I was going to make using some of my turkey, a fruity crunchy salad that is a meal in a bowl.  It is a riff on that classic chicken salad with grapes which was popular for many years; I updated it with a sprinkle of pomegranate seeds and slices of creamy avocado. Both add color and great flavor.

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If you don’t like avocado; just leave it out although I think you should try it at least once: avocado is really good for you and you may suddenly decide you like its smooth contrast to the rest of the salad. I much prefer the Hass avocado; smaller with pebbly skin.  Pick one with a slight give, not hard as a rock nor mushy or about to cave in.

hass avocado

The pomegranate seeds are mostly there for the color burst they give and there is some crunch and flavor I enjoy too.  To get at the seeds I usually cut carefully into the skin and peel it back in two places to make a wedge of exposed interior.   Then i break it open and pick out the seeds.  I only pick out what I am going to use and put the rest of the pomegranate in a plastic bag and store it in the fridge.  There are U-tube videos on how to easily get at the seeds if you want to check them out; might be easier. When choosing a pomegranate pick one that feels heavy for its size, the skin should not be dull or damaged, no soft spots and the color is a vibrant red.  Fall is the season for pomegranates; don’t look for them in June.  I have and they are very hard to find after winter ends.

pomegranate

But do leave in the grapes and nuts and the celery.  They are essential to the flavor and crunch of it. I used Light Hellman’s mayo, less calories and I like its texture and flavor.

This is a sort of approximate recipe; everyone has their own idea on how much mayo, how many grapes, and how much mustard. I am giving a middle ground amount in a recipe for one dinner sized salad.  Adjust to your tastes and feel free to double it or triple.

Roasted Chicken/Turkey Salad

Ingredients:

Roasted turkey/chicken; whatever part you like

Dijon mustard

Light mayonnaise

Red wine vinegar

Celery

Pomegranate seeds

Lettuce

Avocado

Directions: Cut up roasted turkey or chicken to make ½ to 2/3 cup of small pieces, half inch to inch sized.  Put them in a mixing bowl.  Add ½ a tsp of Dijon or whole grain mustard, 2-3 tbsp. good quality mayonnaise, ½ to 1 tsp red wine vinegar, one stalk celery cut into small slices, a dozen grapes cut in half, a ¼ cup of pomegranate seeds, 2 tsp. of walnut chunks.  Stir it to blend and meld it.  Tear up 3-5 leaves of romaine or loose leaf lettuce and lay in your shallow big salad bowl.  Top with the chicken/turkey salad and then a few thin slices of avocado and the sprinkle of ruby pomegranate seeds.

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I used some red leaf romaine I got at Valley Farm Markets, great crunch and color. Use whatever kind of lettuce you like although iceberg would be my dead last choice; less flavor and nutrition in iceberg.

This makes a great lunch full of protein and healthy veggies. It is simple to make, elegant looking and very yummy.  Now you have one more turkey option for all those leftovers next week!  Actually this salad is great anytime, not just after the Thanksgiving feast.  Enjoy.