Chicken Salad

Hello friends. Clearly I haven't forgotten that this blog exists. I just had not been cooking much on my own for a while. In fact, that whole healthy living thing just kinda evaded me for a while and I put on a few pounds as proof.

The one actual lifestyle change that worked for me was trying the ketogenic lifestyle. I will not gush about it as many people do. It worked very well for me when I stuck to it. I only stopped sticking to it during my wedding planning process as I was still new at that lifestyle and it takes a bit of work at the beginning to learn and plan your foods. There's a lot more cooking at home that happens for sure, which is great all around. Until you run out of time because wedding planning.

Anyway, I hope to get back to it but at the moment I'm just trying to eat healthy where I can and practice portion control (which is huge for me since I scarf things like no other).

So, on to the chicken salad. Sadly, I have no pictures. I was a bum and didn't take any while preparing this dish. I hope you understand.

I roasted a chicken in my oven a while back. When it was done, my fiance and I looked at each other and realized that we weren't hungry. So we stuck it in the fridge. A week went by... finally I decided it was time to eat that thing, so I put it in my crock pot with some filtered water and a few spices and boiled it until I had chicken broth. Then we tried to eat it.

It was very clearly old chicken. You could taste the "aged" flavor. We managed to eat a few bites, and then filled up on the rice I had made with the broth.

Figuring this was a total loss I put all my eggs in one basket: chicken salad. There was a lot of meat on that bird that I did not want to waste. I grew up very poor, so, unless there was mold on it, it was valid leftovers (I am not that bad anymore, but this chicken was definitely something that everybody else I know would have just thrown out by this point. In fact, they probably would have thrown it out before even bothering to make broth) and had to be eaten. Besides how I was raised, there's also the wedding budget to consider. We are putting more into this wedding than I expected, but at the end of the day, it will be really nice and it will be worth it. But it means we have to tighten our belts. And wasting a whole chicken just really isn't an option.

So, the first thing I did was scour the internet for some recipes and I found a few that I wanted to massage into a coherent recipe for myself. I love the website Use Real Butter and her Chicken Salad Recipe was a great starting base for mine. Then, after a long day at work yesterday, I went to the store and bought my supplementary ingredients: mayo, green onions, grapes, celery, and parsley.

Here's the deal. I hate nuts in my food. Absolutely and completely hate nuts in my food. I love them on their own, but not in my food. Their texture is all wrong. ALL WRONG. The same goes for apples in chicken salad. Just no. I never realized how picky I was about food texture until I hit a few foods that were so discordant in their texture that it was physically jarring.

To me, chicken salad should have the consistency of tuna salad, with a hint of crunch but without needing a lot of chewing. Also, celery has a tendency to be over powering, so no huge chunks.

How to accomplish this? Simple, take your celery, slice it lengthwise and then slice it into little chunks from there. You know how if you just slice celery it makes these little curved smiles? Cut those in half and you have the right sized chunks. These little chunks provide a little crunch and burst of celery flavor, but they're so small they don't overpower everything else AND they don't take much time to chew.

Along with slicing the green onions and the grapes and chopping some fresh parsley, the rest of the recipe is mixing. Speaking of mixing, you will notice there are no cranberries or raisins. I love cranberries and they're okay in my chicken salads but my fiance hates them with a passion (more for me). Deciding that I could do without a chewy texture in my chicken salad I opted for the slight sweetness of grapes.

How did my recipe fare? Did the fiance like it?

Oh boy did he ever! He asked for seconds! Which is saying something considering he took two bites of the plain chicken the night before and then politely declined eating any more of it.

Without further ado the chicken salad recipe.

Ingredients:
2 cups cooked chicken, diced
1 cup grapes, sliced 1/4" thick
1/4 cup celery, finely diced
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1/8 cup fresh parsley, minced
3/4 cup mayonnaise (more or less as needed)
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp salt (more or less as needed)

Instructions:
Combine the all the ingredients in a mixing bowl. Season with additional salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy in sandwiches, on saltine crackers, or straight from the bowl.

Serves: About 3

Homemade Chocolate Free Nutella

I know what you're thinking. Who in their right mind would want chocolate free Nutella?

Let me relate to you a sad fact. I am allergic to chocolate. Specifically, anything with cocoa in it's name.

Ninja blender for the win, minimal side scraping necessary

There are many people who think they are allergic to chocolate but are actually allergic to one or more of the other ingredients in inferior chocolate.

Sadly, that is not the case with me. Chocolate in all shapes, sizes, forms, consistencies, and qualities is a no-go for me.

So what is a girl to do when everyone else is having yummy chocolatey goodness? Improvise. I do that a lot. This time around, I did it with hazelnut spread. Commonly referred to as Nutella.

Without further ado, I present my homemade, chocolate (cocoa) free, hazelnut spread recipe.

Hazelnut Carob Spread

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 Cups Hazelnuts
• 12 Ounces Carob Chips
• 2 Tablespoons Coconut Oil (any mild vegetable oil will work here)
• 3 Tablespoons Confectioners' Sugar (aka Powdered Sugar) (more or less depending on preference)
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 3.4 Teaspoon Salt (more or less depending on preference)

Getting ready to pour into my mason jar

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit
2. Spread hazelnuts in single layer on baking sheet
3. Bake for about 10-12 minutes
4. Remove as much of the skins as possible. The easiest way I have found was to wrap in a towel and rub vigorously.
5. Let hazelnuts cool completely
6. In a food processor (I totally used a Ninja blender), grind the hazelnuts into a paste
7. Add oil, sugar, vanilla, salt, and continue processing until the mixture is as smooth or chunky as you'd like

 I may have over indulged on that piece of toast. That was a lot of spread and it is very rich!

Your spread may be a bit runny coming out of the processor, but it will thicken up as it cools.

Your spread should keep on the counter for up to 2 weeks and in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.

Enjoy!

3 Bean Salad

I hate beans. I hate salad.

Throw the two of those things together in a bowl and I want to hurl.

So when I politely accepted the 3 bean salad sample at my friendly neighborhood farmer's market I resisted the urge to gag and ate my bean salad.

That was when I had a taste of some of the most refreshing food I've eaten in a very long time.

It was a very hot day and that salad cooled me internally quite quick and wonderfully.

So naturally I snapped a pic and got the recipe from the sales lady.

Black Beans
Red Beans
Garbanzo Beans
Red Bell Pepper Diced
Cucumber Diced
Cilantro Finely Chopped

Lemon Juice
Olive Oil
Salt

1 can each of all the beans. Mix with enough of the oil and juice to coat and salt to taste.

Pretty simple. Pretty easy. Quite delicious!

P.S. Yeah, it's been crazy long since I've posted. I know. Life. It happens. And I work in spurts, so, I'll probably update regular for a while. Then drop off the face of the planet for a while. Meh. It happens.

Egg Free, Wheat Free, Dairy Free Banana Bread

Ingredients:

• 1/3 c white sugar
• 1/3 c dark brown sugar
• 1/3 c oil (I use extra virgin olive oil, but you can use vegetable or canola oil)
• 2 c all purpose rice flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 4 mashed bananas
• 1/2 c almond milk (I use the sweetened almond milk, you can use the plain almond milk, or rice milk, or coconut milk, whichever you prefer)

Directions:

1. Mash well ripened bananas in a small bowl and set aside. Tip: If your bananas are brown freeze them to save them for this bread, then defrost them and they'll slide right out of the peel once you cut it.
2. Mix baking powder,baking soda,flour and sugar.
3. Add mashed bananas, milk, and oil. Stir well. This batter will be very thick.
4. Spoon ingredients into a greased a 9x5x3" loaf pan or muffin tins. This gets a little tricky, you can't use the baking PAM and stay gluten free and every other version of PAM leaves you with lecithin, a soy derivative. I'm intolerant to both of those things, So I of necessity grease my pan with either extra virgin olive oil or canola oil (I can't have corn either, so that nixes vegetable oil in my case).
5. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for approximately 50 minutes (you'll have to check for yourself as my oven runs a little hotter than most) for a loaf or 20 to 30 minutes for muffins.
6. Insert a tooth pick to check if done.
7. Optional: 
1. Cinnamon is a wonderful addition to this guy. 
2. You can also use any jams, jellies, or preserves that you want to use up. When pouring the batter, reserve about 1/3 of it. Warm your jam/jelly/preserve until it can be poured out of the bottle. Pour the jam/jelly/preserve over the batter in the pan, pour the remaining batter over the top. Cook as normal.
3. Additionally you can brush the top with a thin layer of oil and sprinkle powdered sugar and nuts on top.

Intolerant to ALL THE THINGS!

Long time no see. In the long interim of my not posting anything I went to a nutritionist and got a blood test done. Turns out I am intolerant to all of the fun stuff. I mean ALL of the fun stuff. Except potatoes. Those are still good.

Let's look at how this works in a typical day.

Breakfast:
I'll start with some eggs.
Wait.
I'm intolerant to eggs.
Okay, cereal.
Intolerant to wheat.
Okay, Gluten free cereal.
Wait, it's corn based. Intolerant to corn.
Yogurt?
Intolerant to casein, which is in yogurt.
Oatmeal, surely -
Intolerant to oats.
Um... Milk and fruit?
Intolerant to milk.
Soy milk!
Intolerant to soy.
A-Almond milk and fruit?
Yeah, I can do that.

Okay breakfast is down. Let's do lunch:
Lemon glazed tuna steak.
Intolerant to tuna. And lemon.
Apple with peanut butter.
Intolerant to peanuts.
Salad with ice tea?
Yeah. That works.

Now it's time for dinner.
Steak and barley stew?
Intolerant to barley.
Steak and rye st-
Intolerant to rye.
Steak, baked potato, green beans with... I dunno more Almond Milk?
Yeah, that works.

See my problem? I am basically restricted to a subset of the Atkins and Paleo diets. It wouldn't be so bad if Almond Milk weren't so bad. And coconut milk is even worse. Rice milk is next on my list of things to try. But after a while I may just drift back to goat's milk and see how that goes.

So now this blog will be a recipe base for the hard to find, obscure concoctions that are made without anything and still hopefully turn out good. Stay tuned for egg free, dairy free, and gluten free banana bread.

Sparkling Apple Brie Bites

I'm surfing along on the internet one day and I find this glorious recipe (see picture) for Sparkling Cranberry Brie Bites. It utilizes fresh cranberries. Well I had just seen a bag of those in the store a couple of weeks back and was wondering what I could use it for, tada!

So I go to my neighborhood super market and look for a bag of cranberries. Turns out they are only around for a limited season. *sighs* So now what do I do with the rest of the ingredients that I bought? Try something new of course!

Now this is certainly either an appetizer or desert, definitely not something you want to make a meal out of, for the fact that it's got a lot of sugar and a lot of cheese. But in small quantities it's enough to help alleviate that sugar craving when you are trying to not eat so much of that powdery white substance.


And now, without further ado, my recipe for Sparkling Apple Brie Bites.

Sparkling Cranberry Brie Bites 

printer friendly recipe

makes about 16 

Sugared Apples

2 cups fresh diced apples (I used honeycrisp, but red delicious and pink lady would work great as well)

1 cup good maple syrup (roughly one cup, see below)

1 cup granulated sugar (roughly one cup, see below)

After washing and dicing your apples place in a bowl. 

Heat enough syrup to coat the apples in a small sauce pan just until warm. 

Pour over apples when syrup is warm. 

Cool, cover, and let soak in the refrigerator overnight (I cheated, I did not let my apples soak over night). 

Place sugar in a large bowl or baking dish (I did not use so much sugar, rather I put my apples on a baking sheet and sprinkled sugar over them).

Add apples roll around until lightly coated in sugar. 

Place on a baking sheet until dry, about 1 hour (I totally ignored this step and slapped those wet, sugar-coated apples onto my brie and crackers). 

16 crackers

8 oz Brie cheese

cranberry (or apple) chutney or cranberry (or apple) relish (I didn't use this ingredient this time)

fresh mint for garnish (I didn't use this ingredient this time either)

Assemble crackers with one slice of brie, a light layer of cranberry (or apple) chutney, and 4 or 5 sugared apple cubes. 

Garnish with fresh mint sprigs. 

Review: Beef Tenderloin Wrap

Original Recipe to be found here at Use Real Butter. 

I modified it a bit as it is originally supposed to be an appetizer.

1/2 lb. Filet Mignon (One Piece)
Salt
2 Stalks Green Onions
6 Tbsps Hoisin Sauce

3 Tbsps Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 Tsp Minced Garlic
Skewers

1 Package Baby Bella Mushrooms

1/2 Yellow Onion Sliced or Diced depending on your preference

Salt the filet and broil (or grill or pan sear) to desired doneness (rare to medium rare is preferred). 

Let beef rest and then refrigerate for an hour. 

Wash and trim the green onions. 

Slice the green onions on a shallow angle into thin strips. 

Remove beef from refrigerator and using a sharp knife, slice at an angle to about 1/8-inch thickness, as many slices as possible. 

For each slice, spread a little hoisin sauce on the beef, place a few green onions at one end of the beef (with the onions sticking out over the edges), and roll up the onions in the beef. I found that an easier method is to pour out 3 Tbsps hoisin sauce on a plate and dip one side of the beef in the sauce and continue from there.

Secure onto skewer.

Place olive oil, remainder of hoisin sauce, onion, garlic, and mushrooms in a skillet. 

Sautee over medium heat until onions are a translucent caramel color. 

Pour onion and mushroom mix over fillet skewers.

The reason I pour the onions and mushrooms over the fillet is because I wanted a warm dish for dinner and this recipe has you cool the beef to slice it up. I think if you have a sharp enough knife one could conceivably cut the meat after it has rested for a few minutes out of the broiler. Then the meat would be warm, but barring that you can pour the piping hot veggies over the meat and onions and that warms it up to a decent temp for a hot meal.

This is a very delicious and savory meal. Enjoy! And for super awesome photos of these wraps go check out the recipe's page at Use Real Butter.