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