Secret Recipe Club: Fall-Inspired Chicken Salad

It's that time of the month.  Secret Recipe Club reveal day!  (It's basically the only day I can consistently keep up with this blog, too!)

I was real excited this month because I got Isabelle from Crumb: A Food Blog.  I've been reading her blog for quite a while, even when it was still called Good Food, Good Wine, and a Bad Girl.  She always has interesting blog posts - and there's always a point where I leave with my mouth watering.  You know that's a good sign!

As always, it's hard to pick what recipe to choose, but since Andy and I are on a bit of a healthy-eating food kick right now, I picked one of Isabelle's delicious looking salads - The Fall-Inspired Grilled Chicken Salad.  Isabelle had a fancy Cuisinart Griddler to do her grilling for her, but since I don't have one of those, and refuse to bust out the George Foreman - I simply sauteed my chicken breasts over the stove.  Besides that minor detail, I pretty much stuck to the recipe as is because it was just that good!

Ingredients:
Adapted Recipe from Crumb

1 large chicken breast, butterflied
2 tablespoons cajun seasoning (I made my own mix from this recipe)
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons spicy brown mustard
1 small shallot, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
salt and pepper, to taste
mixed salad greens
1 Granny Smith apple, cored and sliced
1/4 cup mixed fruit and nut trail mix

Season each side of the chicken breast with the cajun seasoning mix.

Heat a large saute pan under medium high heat and add about a tablespoon of olive oil.  Add chicken breast and cook for about 4-5 minutes, or until browned.  Flip over and cook an additional 4-5 minutes, or until cooked thoroughly.  Set chicken aside on cutting board to rest.

Make vinaigrette by combining olive oil, apple cider vinegar, maple syrup, Dijon mustard, spicy brown mustard, shallot, and garlic in a small bowl.  Whisk until mixture is emulsified (no separation of acid and oil).  Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

In a large bowl, toss the greens with about 2 tablespoons of the vinaigrette and divide among two plates.  Top greens with trail mix and sliced apples.  Then top with sliced chicken breasts.  Serve with additional dressing, if desired.

Like I said, this was an amazing meal - and I would expect nothing less from something on Isabelle's blog!  Feel like being adventurous?  Join the SRC today!

Broccoli Salad

I have a secret.  I claim to dislike mayonnaise or Miracle Whip, or anything resembling the two.  And honestly, I really do dislike those condiments - the majority of the time.

But then there's other times.  Times where I want to make broccoli salad, where I secretly embrace mayo and forget that we have such a tumultuous love-hate relationship.

And don't even get me started on broccoli salad.  I used to think that it was something just old (no offense!) people ate.  I mean, really?  Broccoli salad?    It was just weird.

But then I became a food blogger.  And being a food blogger, I'm practically obsessed with searching through random blogs and broadening my horizons.  And so we come full circle to broccoli salad.  And mayo.  And I'm jumping in head first... because seriously.  This is one of the best side dishes I've made all year.  Yeah.  THAT good.

This post was entered in the event “Get Grillin’ with Family Fresh Cooking and Cookin’ Canuck, sponsored by Ile de France Cheese, Rösle, Emile Henry, Rouxbe and ManPans. 
Ingredients:

1 medium head of broccoli, chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/8 cup sunflower seeds
4 slices of bacon, cooked and chopped
1/2 cup Miracle Whip/Mayo (I used MW because we didn't have any mayo)
1/8 to 1/4 cup sugar (Use less sugar if using MW because it's sweeter than mayo)
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

In a large bowl, combine the broccoli, onion, raisins, sunflower seeds, and bacon.  Mix well.

In a small bowl, combine the Miracle Whip (or mayo), sugar, and vinegar until smooth.

Pour Miracle Whip/mayo mixture over broccoli and toss until coated well.

Now, I made the mistake of saying Miracle Whip was the same thing as mayo once... and Andy promptly corrected me.  I didn't know he was the mayo police, but he argued his point and I suppose I can agree (but don't tell him that he's right!).  Either can be used in this recipe though, and I must say, I'm partial to the Miracle Whip version.

Either way, like I said... this is the best side dish I've made all year.  And to think that 48 hours ago I scoffed at broccoli salad.  Never again!

And don't forget, tomorrow is Thursday - which means I'll be doing a CSA round up... so if you want your CSA pics featured, don't forget to e-mail them to me @ mtlabor85 (at) yahoo (dot) com!

See you guys tomorrow!

Asian Chicken Salad

Now I know you all are probably going to get tired of me talking about my upcoming wedding... but let's face it... this is my blog and I can talk about anything I want to. Haha, but seriously, I think it helps with my stress level if I just dump it down onto here because I think Andy is thinking I'm a little nuts right now. But anyway, we had a snow day from school yesterday and I started a wedding binder. It's mostly consisting of ripped up pages from magazines that "inspire" me or are cool ideas for certain aspects of the wedding. I find myself not doing homework and thinking about wedding plans, so it's a distracting hobby that's for sure.

Anyway, I loved this salad because it's so simple and quick. And I made on a night that I worked until 10:30pm, so I didn't get home until 11 and I was ready to eat. This came together in minutes and was quite delicious.

Ingredients:
Adapted from Tasty Art's blog

2-3 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cooked and cut into strips
mung bean sprouts
1 can of pineapple chunks, drained
1 carrot, grated or shredded (I did both)
1 head of iceberg lettuce, roughly chopped
pinch of sesame seeds
1 tablespoon sesame oil
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
pinch of ground ginger
pinch of brown sugar

Wash all your vegetables (lettuce, carrot, and mung beans) and bring together in a large bowl. Add pineapple and chicken. Toss everything together pretty good.

In a small bowl, combine the remaining ingredients to make a quick Asian dressing. You can either serve the lettuce on plates/bowls and then add dressing or toss dressing into large bowl to get everything coated pretty well. I just added it to the large bowl and combined everything.

Like I said, easy peasy. This was delicious, refreshing, and didn't give me that "I scarfed this down so fast because I was hungry and now I'm bloated feeling" before bed. Needless to say, it was about 11:30pm by this time and I didn't need a full stomach to put myself to bed. Enjoy!

Raspberry-Walnut Grilled Chicken Salad

We never have salad for dinner. But, to go along with our healthy eating, I figured why not. I've got to get that bikini body ready somehow and I've only got 1 more week until our vacation! I'm definitely in need of one considering I've taken two summer classes already and yesterday was my last day. It was a relief lifted off of my back to know that I got an A in both!

Anyway, got off on a little tangent there, but I was browsing some recipes and found this lovely cherry chicken salad recipe over at More Please.

I WAS going to use dried cranberries instead of cherries, but I forgot to save some cranberries from our cranberry-bacon fried rice the other day, that I just opted to do without the fruit because I was too lazy to go to the grocery. And a couple other tweaks also...

Ingredients:

2 Chicken Breasts
1 tablespoon strawberry jam
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon raspberry walnut vinaigrette
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tablespoon shallot, minced
salt and pepper to taste
bag of spring mix
1/4 cup maple sage walnuts
1 cup walnuts
3 tablespoons syrup
1 teaspoon dried sage or 1 fresh sage leaf chopped finely
4 tablespoon goat cheese

Combine jam, 1 tablespoon raspberry walnut (or any fruity vinaigrette really), olive oil, lime juice, lemon juice, shallow, salt and pepper in medium sized bowl. Add chicken and mixture into plastic bag and let marinate for about 2-3 hours.

While chicken is marinating, you can make the maple sage walnuts. These were probably my favorite part of the salad. Such a good use of walnuts.

In a small skillet under medium heat, add walnuts, syrup, sage, and a pinch of salt and cook for about 3-4 minutes. Make sure syrup covers all of the walnuts and let cool. Easy huh??


When chicken is finished marinating, preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Heat medium sized oven proof skillet under medium to high heat and sear chicken until golden brown on both sides, about 3 minutes per side. (as an alternative to an oven proof skillet, you could always lay a baking sheet in the oven while it's preheating, and when done searing chicken on stove, add chicken to hot sheet pan). Then put skillet in oven and cook chicken for about 10 more minutes. The searing of the chicken on the stove first allows the chicken to be "sealed" with flavor, and in my experience, I've found this to make the chicken juicier while it's in the oven, not dried out.

When chicken is cooked through, allow it to rest for about 5 minutes.

Prepare even amounts of spring mix on two plates. Slice chicken and add on top of salad. Sprinkle walnuts, goat cheese, and if you want to some dried fruit (cranberries, strawberries, or cherries). Then drizzle vinaigrette over salad and serve!


This is definitely a delicious and light meal that's great on a hot summer day!