Day 13: Blackened Chicken Salad

 A girls gotta take advantage of warm days in December. So, grilled chicken it is! 

I wanted lots of variety in today's salad, so I picked lettuce from three different spots in our hoop building. 

For some extra crunch, I added some purple kale. Green onions are a must. Then, because this salad has a Mexican taste, I grabbed some fresh cilantro. Carrots were already picked and ready to use, and cherry tomatoes came out of the freezer, roasted for 15 minutes at 400 degrees. But you could use fresh cherry tomatoes, too.

I had to buy the avocado. You can't win them all.

Blackened Chicken Salad

4 chicken breasts

1 tsp paprika

1 1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp cumin 

2 T olive oil

1/4 lb assorted lettuce (about 4 cups), washed and chopped

1/2 c cherry tomatoes

2 green onions

4-5 stems cilantro

4 yellow carrots, chopped

2 avocados, chopped

tortilla strips, optional

shredded cheddar cheese, optional (but always at our house)

1. Preheat grill.

2. Mix together in a large bowl the paprika, garlic powder, smoked paprika, cumin, and olive oil.

3. Add the chicken to the spice mixture and cover chicken thoroughly.

4. Place chicken on preheated grill. Grill chicken for 7-9 minutes per side, cooking to an internal temperature of 165 degrees.

5. Meanwhile, combine the lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cilantro, carrots, and avocado. 

6. Remove chicken from grill. Allow to rest 2-3 minutes, then slice into strips. 

7. Serve on top of lettuce, with your favorite salad dressing. (Catalina is my go-to for this salad.) Add tortilla strips and shredded cheese, if so desired.

Day 13: Blackened Chicken Salad

Day 6: Carrot Salad

I'm going back to the potluck tradition for today's entry: carrot raisin salad. 

There are nearly as many versions of this recipe as there are rows of carrots at our farm. Unless I'm baking, I never follow a recipe exact. Tonight's salad as a combination of this recipe and this recipe. 

Funny thing, though. Even if you’ve been married to the same guy for 21 years and counting, you can learn something new. Like Jay doesn’t like raisins but does like cranberries. Hence another adaptation.

My version for five of us looked like this:

3 orange carrots, peeled and shredded

3 purple carrots, peeled and shredded

3 yellow carrots, peeled and... you guessed it ... shredded

3/4 cup dried cranberries

1/4 cup mayonaisse

2 T sugar

2 T milk

1/4 cup sour cream

Blend together in a bowl the mayo, sugar, milk, and sour cream. Add a little lemon if you want some more tang. Stir in the cranberries and carrots, until the dressing is evenly dispersed. Chill until ready to serve. 

It added some nice color to our tumeric-rosemary rice, oven roasted radishes, and pan fried duck.

Day 6: Carrot Salad

Day 7: Pink Goo Salad

We eat weird things around here. I get it. And we rarely know the name of what we are eating. Like yesterday, when I roasted this veggie, not knowing if it was a type of radish or turnip or parsnip or what.

It was a daikon radish. And in my defense, a new variety. But I digress.

When you eat weird nameless things, you start naming dishes weird names. Like the Pink Goo Salad featured today.

Secret time, I don’t like raw radishes. At least not when they are spicy. But this recipe with its raw radishes was delicious to me. And Jay. And the kids.  So the pink goo salad is here to stay. 

If you’d like to make your own pink goo salad, the actual recipe is, well, we can't find it. But I can tell you how Jay made it.

In the salad pictured above, Jay used purple meat daikon, Red King daikon, white daikon, Watermelon radishes and carrots. Peel and shred all of those into a bowl. Add in a cup of Craisins (or raisins, whatever is your preference). Mix together a cup of mayo, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger, 2-4 tablespoons honey (or half that amount of sugar), and 3 tablespoons lemon juice. Stir dressing into slaw and refrigerate a bit before eating.

Now you too can enjoy your pink goo.

Day 7: Pink Goo Salad

Day 5: Fajita Salad

After Jay and our high schoolers were out picking carrots after school, it was just too cold for a basic salad tonight. And so, we made up this gem: beef fajita salad.

We started out with an assortment of lettuce. I am a bit spoiled, so I walked out to hoop B and picked three kinds of lettuce: Miur, Cherokee, and hornet. Don’t let me fool you; I don’t know which is which, and I had to ask Jay. I just say “I want some of the light green, some of that darker green, and some dark purple lettuce.”

Then I negotiated with my helpers, and they picked me a rainbow of carrots, a fresh green onion, and a yellow onion.

And because I’m really spoiled, I walked to the basement and got a package of beef fajita meat from last year’s 4-H steer.  I sautéed the beef with the chopped onion, and added a little Italian dressing and lime juice. 

I’m a big believer that every dish needs a contrast of tastes (sweet and salty) and textures. So, I tossed these tortilla strips together, but added about a teaspoon of cumin and half teaspoon of paprika in the oil before tossing with the tortillas and baking.

I chopped all the veggies and tossed together without a care. 

Then, it was time to build. Lettuce and veggies, fajita beef and onions, cheddar cheese, Catalina dressing, and tortilla strips. 

YUM.

Day 5: Fajita Salad

You Eat With Your Eyes Salad

Day 3 of the Salad Spree features of a rainbow kale salad. 

Maggie said this is the prettiest salad I've ever made. Katie called it a veggie charcuterie board. John called it baby food salad. 

You win some, you lose some.

This salad is based on this recipe from loveandlemons.com. Kind of sounds like love 'em or leave 'em, which is how most people feel about kale: you either love it or hate it. The secret to kale is to soften it before you eat it. Kale prefers to have the salad dressing put on ahead of time, and will maintain that nice crunch in its leaves. And kale is good for you -- actually helps provide calcium, iron, and potassium to your diet. 

This salad had a few new ingredients to our household, including raw beets, roasted chickpeas, and pepitas. But, it sure looked pretty! The full list of ingredients for our version are as follows: purple kale, red beets, orange carrots, yellow carrots, purple carrots, watermelon radish, sunflower seeds, avocado (had to buy that), pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, and roasted chickpeas.

Except... the salad dressing. I dont know if it's because I had to use a food processor instead of a blender. I don't know if it's because I didn't cook the carrots enough. But the carrot ginger dressing looked more like carrot baby food. Tasted great, especially after we added 1/4 cup of orange juice to try to thin it out. But a little gloppy.

Still, the variations in flavors and textures made this salad really yummy. It's definitely on the make-again list.

You Eat With Your Eyes Salad

30 Days of Salad, Day 1: Roll-ups

Most of us have eaten our fill of delicious pies, desserts, and cream-filled appetizers... or is that just our house? The calorie overload was delicious and worth it. But, with that in mind, now is a great time to start a salad spree. So, the Sleichter squad goal is a salad every day for 30 days.

But, since we rarely do things "normal", we are starting the salad spree with lettuce roll-ups. Except without lettuce. Like I said, not normal. 

Recipes are just a suggestion for most of our meals, but it is nice to have a starting point. Lettuce roll-ups are made for improvising, as you can use about any green and fill it with about any filling. Usually, we do assorted chop veggies, cut up fried chicken, and your favorite salad dressing.

For today's recipe, we started with PF Chang's Chicken Lettuce Wraps. But, we had frozen chicken strips instead of ground chicken. I made the sauce in a saucepan, and substituted soy faux peanut butter for the hoison sauce. And we used collard greens instead of lettuce. It was yummy and kid-approved. We added potstickers and egg rolls, to make it feel more like a Chinese restaurant meal. 

To prepare the collard greens for roll-up, bring a pot of water to boil. Cut off the stem on the collard green leaves, and shave off about half of the thick middle rib of the collard green, so it isn't as thick and easier to roll. Rinse off the leaves. Dip them into the boiling water for about 5 seconds, just until they start to soften. Remove and let cool slightly, while you blanch the remaining leaves. They are now ready to fill.

Collard greens aren't a nutritional powerhouse; their only benefit is added calcium and potassium. But, they are a great filler, a low cal, fat free option to fill you up and keep you from eating other foods... like those cream-filled appetizers and pies.

LS 

30 Days of Salad, Day 1: Roll-ups