Chicken Salad

For Sunday brunch, in addition to the cheese souffle, I also made a chicken salad from the leftovers of a chicken I had roasted a couple nights earlier. You could do the same very easily with a rotisserie chicken from the market.

Three cups chopped cooked chicken (with or without the skin, depending on how much you care about being alive for much longer)
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup chopped chives
1 cup seedless grapes, halved or quartered depending on size (I used red for the color)
3/4 cup toasted walnuts, chopped or broken into small pieces
freshly ground black pepper

1 lemon
salt

Combine all ingredients through the black pepper in a medium bowl. Taste. I had cooked a maple black pepper glazed roasted chicken, so the outside was a little sweet. Therefore, I added the juice of about a half a lemon to counter the maple's sweetness, add a little acidity. You could also use fresh tarragon for the same thing. So, taste yours, see if you need to add lemon. Same thing with the salt - mine was a little salty on the skin so I didn't need to add any to the salad. Enjoy with bread, mixed salad greens, whatever floats your boat.

Lamb Pitas

Still working on some lamb leftovers. So, we stuffed some pitas with our choice of cooked lamb, diced tomatoes, diced cucumbers, crumbled feta, hot sauce, calamata tapenade, chopped red onion and a quick garlicky yogurt sauce: 1 cup low-fat yogurt mixed with two minced garlic cloves, a teaspoon chopped dill, squeeze of one lemon, salt and pepper. Also, to heat the lamb a little without drying it out I cubed it and sauteed it for just a minute or two in some hot olive oil, so it got a little crunchy.

Probably not again

Well, last night I was kind of craving a grilled cheese sandwich. Also, we have a TON of bacon we need to cook. But we were out of bread. So, in what I now recognize just crossed the line, I made a gouda and bacon sandwich on, um, banana bread. I think the gouda and bacon were fine together, and same with the gounda and banana bread. It's the bacon and banana bread that just didn't seem natural. I thought it might be reminiscent of sweet french toast with bacon, but it wasn't. It was just weird. Oh, and some cherry tomatoes on the side. What was I thinking?

hmmmmm

Okay, not a very auspicious beginning. I have been bad about posting, and it's not because there haven't been things to post or because my lovely boyfriend hasn't taken shots of my sometimes pretty food. Just sheer laziness. So, here are some things done lately, and I will be better from now on:

My parents came over for dinner a couple of weeks ago and I made a Beer Braised Chicken dish from a recent Food and Wine magazine. It turned out well, but honestly both Drew and I were not thrilled with the flavor. Something tasted kind of musty - we think it might have been the saffron? However, I really think I did the recipe just as it was written and that it tasted as it was supposed to. Probably won't be making this again, though it was pretty.

Also, a week or so ago we had burgers done my favorite way - with my friend Charles' recipe. Mix the burger meat with pepper and whatever other spices you want. Slice butter into 1/2 tablespoon slices, coat them in minced fresh thyme, and form patties around the thyme-coated butter. Grill or fry as normal. While they are cooking, you put butter, red wine and brown sugar into a small saucepan and cook down until it is nice and thick. Pour over burgers when they are ready. Its ridiculously yummy. I added some blue cheese too.

A Plethora of Hotdogs

My first post! This blog is mainly for me to keep a record of what I cooked, what recipes I used, how I changed them, and what did and didn't work. If anyone else happens to enjoy it, fabulous!

At the last minute on Derby Day we panicked and thought we didn't have enough fried chicken. So, we ran out and got a few packages of hotdogs. They weren't touched and have been frozen as I figure out ways to use them that aren't too disgusting. I'm kind of sad that this is the first entry on the blog, since it's nothing special, but tonight I used them in one of our regular dishes: hotdogs cooked in beer and sauerkraut and potato pancakes with sour cream. Totally simple, totally bad for you yummy dish. And I toast the hot dog bun in the oven just beforehand.