Chicken Salad Sandwich

I can't say that I've ever had a chicken salad sandwich, so quite frankly I have no idea what they taste like, but when I think shower food, I equate it to chicken salad sandwiches. I don't know, something about women sitting around eating salads and sandwiches comes to my mind first. I got this recipe from America's Test Kitchen. If you don't know what it is, google it, it will change your life. Okay maybe not really, but EVERY recipe I've made in this cookbook has come out fantastic. So without further ado:

Chicken Salad Sandwiches

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• Salt and Pepper
• 2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil
• 2 Ribs of Celery, chopped fine
• 3/4 Cup Mayonnaise
• 2 Scallions, minced
• 2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice (people kept noting the slight lemon flavor and how much they liked it, I wouldn't skip this part)
• 2 Tablespoons minced fresh parsley

Side Note: The recipe does say that you can also add 2 tablespoons minced fresh tarragon or basil

Directions:

1. Season t:e chicken with salt and pepper
2. Heat the oil in 12-inch non-stick skillet over medium heat until shimmering
3. Carefully add the chicken and cook until lightly golden brown on the first side, about 5 minutes
4. Flip the chicken over, cover and continue to cook until it is no longer pink in the center, about 5 minutes longer.
5. Transfer chicken to a plate and refrigerate until chilled, about 30 minutes.
6. Cut the chilled chicken into 1/4-inch pieces and toss with the remaining ingredients. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Another side note: I baked the chicken, at 350 for about 15 minutes instead.

I doubled the recipe and then bought a package of croissants, cut them open, and then filled with chicken salad, then cut those in half, so that people didn't have to eat a whole sandwich. I just about used all of the chicken, minus maybe 1 or 2 sandwiches worth of salad.

And the result is:

 

Chinese Chicken Salad

This recipe we've been making in my family for as long as I can remember, I have no idea where it came from, but I hear that it's a somewhat popular salad. It's super simple, I know I keep saying that, but really, it is. Trust me, this is the recipe for you if you want to wow people with your culinary skills...okay not really, but it's super good.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup oil
4 Tablespoons Seasame Seed Oil
10 Tablespoons Rice Vinager
3 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
Fresh Pepper (to taste)
Fresh Ginger (to taste, I like a lot of ginger flavor so I micro grate about a 2 inch chunk)
Top Roman (chicken flavor) - break apart the top roman into smaller chunks, I will typically break apart before opening package, you want chucks, don't break them up too small, bite size)
2 Small Heads Cabbage - shredded
Green Onions (To taste, I know I hate this term too, but if you like green onions, use a lot, if you    don't use a little, I typically will use 1 bundle ~ about 6-7)
Chicken (cooked and cubed, or shredded, however you want it in your salad)

For the dressing:
Mix the oil, seasame seed oil, rice vinagar, soy sauce, fresh pepper, fresh ginger, chicken flavor packets from top roman

For the Salad:

In a sealable contantainer mix cabbage, green onions, top roman noodles, chicken. Pour salad dressing over mixture, mix well. Let sit over night. Stir a few times. If you can turn the container over and let sit upside down. If not, then just stir every once in a while (once or twice will do)

Let sit for at least a day. I know the recipe is sort of fly by the seat of your pants, but once you do it once, you're going to realize how easy it is and you'll find yourself making this again and again. Holy run on sentence.

Enjoy!

P.S. Apparently I forgot to take a picture of the chinese chicken salad, it's the salad on the bottom right.

Fruit Salad

For me the perfect fruit salad doesn't have those fillers like watermelon and caneloupe. So whenever I make mine, I always put in fruit that I really enjoy, that way if there is a lot left over, I have my fruit for lunches made, win win for all involved.

The fruit that I included are:

Strawberries
Blueberries
Green Grapes
Raspberries

Makes for a really colorful display and everyone enjoys berries. I don't add any sugar or dressing to it, I let the fruit do the talking.

Strawberry Spinach Salad

I know that I wanted a light salad, and one that didn't include meat for those vegetarians that were going to be joining us at the shower. I figured strawberries are in season, and what goes best with strawberries in a salad, spinach of course! So I found this recipe courtesy of Paula Dean, and I hear that it turned out pretty good. You don't know this, but will in one second, I have a lot of food allergies. I didn't bring my own oil with me, so I had to use what the bride had on hand, which was one that I cannot eat, but there wasn't any left over, so I'm thinking it was a hit.

This is super simple and easy to make. I didn't add the almonds, since I'm allergic to those too, but I'm sure it would be equally delicious with those added in.

Ingredients

• 1 (10 to 12-ounce) package baby spinach, washed and dried
• 1/3 cup sliced almonds, toasted
• 1 pint strawberries, hulled and quartered
• 1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and finely diced

Dressing:

• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon poppy seeds

Directions

In a large salad bowl, add the spinach, almonds, strawberries, and cucumber and toss together.

For the dressing:
In a small glass bowl or jar with a tight-fitting lid, combine the lemon juice, vinegar, sugar, oil, and poppy seeds. Whisk together in the glass bowl or shake if using a jar.
Dress the salad right before serving.

And the finished product:

Quinoa Salad

I figured that the food at the shower was such a hit that I would post the recipes here. So this week, we're going to do a recipe week. I only have 4 recipes, so the rest of the week, I'll fill in with recipes that I really like (but those won't have pictures, boo) I don't have pictures of step by step, but everything I made was really easy, so I'll just post the after picture of what it should look like.

Before I post this, I would like to say that I got this from a close friend, and don't know what website she found it on.

ACTIVE: 30 MINTOTAL TIME: 2 HRS 45 MINSERVINGS: 8HEALTHYMAKE-AHEADVEGETARIANINGREDIENTS

12 ounces dried black beans, picked over and rinsed (I just used a can of black beans, and it worked great, you can even do a can and a half if you really like black beans)

Salt

1 cup quinoa, rinsed

3 tablespoons sherry vinegar

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

1 chipotle in adobo, minced

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

6 scallions, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced

1 small red onion, finely diced

1 yellow bell pepper, finely diced

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

 DIRECTIONS

In a large saucepan, cover the beans with cold water and bring to a boil. Cover and let stand off the heat for 1 hour (unless you're doing the canned and then you can skip this step)

(and this step, see how much easier it is if you just used canned? You get to skip two steps) Drain the beans. Return them to the pot and cover with 3 inches of water. Bring to a boil and simmer over low heat until tender, about 1 hour and 30 minutes; season generously with salt during the last 10 minutes. Drain and let cool

Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, combine the quinoa with 2 cups of water and a pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Cover the saucepan and simmer the quinoa over low heat until the water has been absorbed, about 15 minutes. Spread the quinoa on a plate and let cool.

In a large bowl, whisk the vinegar, soy sauce, lime juice and chipotle. Add the olive oil in a thin stream, whisking until blended. Add the black beans, quinoa, scallions, red onion, yellow pepper and cilantro. Season with salt, toss to combine and serve.

See, totally easy right? And this is your finished product, always a crowd pleaser and lasts in the fridge for a while, easy lunches too!

Bridal Shower - Tiffany Style

I threw my best friend a bridal shower. She lives up in the mountains, so we had to bring everything up with us, but I think it turned out pretty good (I am jealous of the grass, how does he get his grass so green and fluffy, yep this is totally real, not that fake stuff, and it's so soft to walk on). So the first table on the left is where the gifts went, the next table is the drinks, and the far table is where the food went.

I got pictures of the bride and groom as kids and then made frames using my cricut, and put the pictures in them, used some ribbon and there you have frames in trees.

Drinks, you can see the pictures a bit better from this view.

I hung some of paper lanterns from the trees above where the food was going to go. These were bought at Micheal's, they are reusable, so a good investment in my opinion.

Here's the table when we got the food on it (top left - quinoa salad, top middle - fruit salad, top right - chicken sandwiches on criosants, bottom left - strawberry spinach salad, bottom right - chinese chicken salad). We had about 20 people and this was the PERFECT amount of food. I couldn't believe how pefect it was, there was about 1/2 a serving left on each plate.

 

We knew that it was going to be outside and sunny/hot in early August, so we found some EZ tents, so people had shade to eat lunch under.

 

The table just had mason jars filled with Daisy's, and then we put a fork and knife in the napkin tied with ribbon.

Here's those tissue pom poms  I know you were dying to see! Don't they look great? 

If you look close there are little chocolate favors, they have Hershey kisses with a tag that says the bride and grooms name along with their wedding date.

There you have it, a bridal shower fit for a queen. Considering we had to bring everything up the mountain with us, I think we did pretty good. Everything turned out perfect and I couldn't have asked for a better bridal shower. Up next week, another bridal shower, I threw with my mom and sister for my brother and his wife.