One chicken: Many Salads

Image courtesy JD Foods

I adore chicken salad. My family adores it as well. I often cook extra chicken so that we can turn it into chicken salad for leftovers. It makes for a great afternoon snack with a few crackers, a nice hearty sandwich for lunch or dinner. I can also toss it into a salad. It's really the perfect food and the fact that it's protein-packed means that it will really satisfy an appetite and not leave you feeling hungry shortly thereafter.

There are so many variations but let's start off with a basic chicken salad.

Ingredients:

4 - 8 skinless chicken breasts (or more) cleaned and trimmed
1/4 onion finely chopped
*Light mayonnaise (I use about 2 tablespoon per breast)
2 stalks of celery, finely chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Tarragon to taste

In a large pot bring water to a ** boil.
Add chicken breasts and cook for about 20 minutes
Remove from water and let cool.
Cut into bite sized pieces. In a large bowl toss in with mayo, onion, celery, salt, pepper and tarragon. Adjust seasonings to taste if necessary.

Serve with a green salad, French bread or as a sandwich on rye, sourdough, country hearth, or whole wheat sandwich bread.

* Regular mayonnaise has 100 calories per tablespoon and light mayonnaise has just 40 calories per tablespoon. If you haven't already make the switch!

** If you live in an area where you can grill year-round or where your grill is not covered with a foot of snow, grilled chicken makes a wonderful chicken salad and adds wonderful flavors and textures. You simply need to season your chicken with salt, pepper and olive oil. BBQ'd chicken makes a wonderful chicken salad as well!

Other variations:

* Instead of the tarragon  you could add some Herbes de Provence or Italian Seasonings. I just love to use the Herbes de Provence in mine!
* My son loves to add some BBQ sauce to his.
* I have added feta, olives, peppers and oregano to give it a Greek twist
* Add a little bit of Dijon mustard
* Sprinkle a little bit of Gorgonzola, and toasted pine nuts to give it an Italian flair
* Some people like grapes or cashews or dried cranberries
* Toss in some pesto with a squeeze of extra lemon
* You can do the same with a chimichuri sauce or a cilantro sauce. I just love the flavors these add.
* Rosemary and lemon add a nice fresh almost summery flavor
* Substitute regular salt for something like Lawry's Seasoned Salt for an intense flavor
* Add an olive tapenade (good quality, store bought is fine)
* Add sun dried tomatoes
* Dill and the juice and zest of a lemon
(Use fresh herbs when in season. Dried herbs are fine as well.)

I bet with all these suggestions you'll have a lot of chicken salad from here on in as well!

Summer BBQ with an Edge!

I love summer foods. I love barbeques and corn and potato salads... I love the flavors and the ease of it all. I love that much of it can be prepared ahead of time. It seemed a perfect thing to have on Wednesday as we celebrated Don's Birthday and had his parents over for dinner. I took all these wonderful, easy foods and jazzed them up a bit.

BBQ Chicken...

There is no BBQ sauce better than Barefoot Contessa's. If you are going to make home made bbq this is the recipe for you!

Directions:

I use boneless chicken breasts when I grill chicken. I generally buy enough to serve 6. Leftovers are good) I made extra the other night to accommodate our company.

I washed and trimmed chicken breasts of any fat. I then cut each breast in to two large pieces then placed the chicken in a marinating dish with the sauce. I pierce the chicken with a fork or knife to really get the flavors absorbed. Marinate chicken for several hours or overnight.
Serve with extra barbecue sauce on the side.

Barbecue Sauce:

1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onion (1 large onion)
1 tablespoon minced garlic (3 cloves)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup tomato paste (10 ounces)
1 cup cider vinegar
1 cup honey
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
1 cup Dijon mustard
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 cup hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1/2 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes

In a large saucepan on low heat, saute the onions and garlic with the vegetable oil for 10 to 15 minutes, until the onions are translucent but not browned. Add the tomato paste, vinegar, honey, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, chili powder, cumin, and red pepper flakes. Simmer uncovered on low heat for 30 minutes. Use immediately or store in the refrigerator.

Copyright, 1999, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, All Rights Reserved

Purple Potato Salad

I haven't met too many potato salads I don't like. But I do prefer the ones that are a little more unique, have a little more bite, or a special ingredient. I love warm German potato salad with it's olive oil and vinegary flavors. But it lacks in color. I love color in my food. My mother never served monochromatic dishes. Food needed flavor and color. Food needed to appeal to the eye and then the mouth. And so this is how I serve my food. And when I was at the grocery store the other day and saw the small bag of blue potatoes next to the red new potatoes I grabbed them both. I first had blue (purple) potatoes with salmon and asparagus at the Plaza Hotel just after Don proposed to me in a Handsome Cab (horse and buggy) in the middle of Central Park on a beautiful Autumn day.

My potato salad would be reminiscent of a German potato salad and have the color and zing of Springtime!

1 lb. small blue (purple) potatoes
1 lb. new red potatoes
6 scallions, washed, trimmed -- both white and green parts
sea salt
olive oil, 1/8 Cup
Cider vinegar, 4 Tbs. or more to taste

Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil. Add potatoes and cook about 12 -15 minutes until done. (Fork should poke through very easily)
Remove potatoes from water and let cool
When cooled, dice and place in a large bowl
Some potatoes will crumble -- this is fine and good as you'll have different textures
Add the scallions, olive oil and vinegar, taste and add more of what you think you need
Add salt to taste
Serve warm or at room temperature

Corn Salad

Another summer favorite of mine is corn salad, especially Barefoot Contessa's. But I make it a lot and wanted another summery variety that was equally as refreshing and yet a little different. So I came up with this. (It was even better the next day so I might suggest making this a day ahead of schedule.)

6 ears of corn
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
6 scallions, trimmed and cut using both white and green parts
2 Tbs. cider vinegar
5 Tbs. olive oil
Sea salt to taste

Shuck and corn and cook in boiling water, about 3 minutes.
Remove from water and let cool
With a large and good kitchen knife, stand corn upright and slice kernels off.
Repeat with all 6 stalks
Place corn in a large bowl, add drained black beans and scallions
Add olive, oil, vinegar and salt to taste
Cover in Saran Wrap and place in fridge for at least a few hours.

You'll notice that I used vinegar, oil, scallions and sea salt in both the corn and potato salads. The two salads go wonderfully together and yet taste quite different!

Both salads are great to make at home and easy enough to make ahead of time to bring to a pot luck BBQ!