Chef Salad w/ Honey Mustard Dressing

Boy am I glad it's Friday!  I don't really have big plans for the weekend (possibly the KY State Fair?), but the usual - relaxing. 

Andy is going to be out tonight for a bachelor party, so that leaves me to fend for myself tonight for dinner.  I work late, so I might just throw together some CSA vegetables and see what I come up with!

Salads are always my go-to lunch during the week, but every now and then you'll see them appear for dinner.  I made this a while back, but it's still been in the back of my mind because it was one of the best and most filling salads I've ever had.  The easy honey mustard dressing really makes this something special!

Ingredients:

Dressing:

1 tablespoon dijon mustard
1 tablespoon honey
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon chopped dill

Salad:

Romaine Lettuce
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and julienned
2 hard boiled eggs, chopped
3 pieces of bacon, cooked and chopped
shredded cheddar cheese
sliced turkey, chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped

I love the "Mason Jar" method when making salad dressings.  What is that?  Well, basically, throw in all of the ingredients for the dressing into a Mason Jar.  Shake until mixed.  Pour on top of salad.  Easy?  Hell yeah it is.

To assemble the salad, wash the lettuce and shake dry.  Divide among plates and top with apple, eggs, bacon, cheese, turkey, and carrots.  Drizzle on dressing. 

And bam!  Lunch or dinner is ready in no time. 

I don't usually like honey mustard as anything other than a dipping sauce for chicken, but on top of this salad... it was amazing.

What's your favorite salad & dressing combo?

Have a great weekend guys!

Chicken Sausage & Peach Tacos

Sometimes one has to stray away from the normal taco.  Sometimes, you just have to be daring.  Sometimes you just have to challenge the pairings of the Flavor Bible and come up with your own (after all - those pairings didn't just show up out of no where - there had to be a first attempt somewhere!).

What was originally a salad, but due to lack of enough lettuce (I know, lame right?), and over abundance of tortillas - soon became one of the most unique tacos I've ever come to know.  And whether it be fate or just pure luck... these things were delicious.


Ingredients:

2 chicken sausages (ours were a sun-dried tomato & basil blend)
shredded lettuce
2 peaches, quartered
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon brown sugar
warm tortillas

In a small skillet, melt the butter under medium high heat.  Add peaches and top with brown sugar.  Cook until peaches are soft and slightly carmelized, "shaking" the pan every so often in order to mix the butter and brown sugar to provide a delicious coating for the peaches.

Ideally, I wanted to grill the sausages, but Mother Nature wasn't havin' it and decided to literally rain on my parade.  So just fry up the whole sausages in a skillet under high heat instead.  Heat until cooked throughout then let rest on a cutting board for about 2-3 minutes, then slice.

Assemble your tacos by placing a layer of lettuce in the middle of a tortilla.  Then top with a few slices of peaches and finally top with a few slices of sausage.  Fold and enjoy!

There was sweet.  There was savory.  And it was all purely delicious!  I can now mark chicken sausage and peaches as a match made in heaven for my Flavor Bible notes - so I dare ya to give it a go and tell me what you think!

And don't forget, I do a CSA round-up every Thursday afternoon - there's still time to submit your CSA/Farmer's Market/Garden pictures!  Just e-mail me at mtlabor85@yahoo.com and I'll put them in the post tomorrow!  See you guys tomorrow.

Garden Update & My New Favorite Sandwich

The garden is really freakin' green right now!  It's definitely in better shape than last year's garden!  We've got tons of lettuce, that's for sure!  The onions are doing pretty well too, well, besides the fact that I planted the pumpkins right next to them.  Maybe next year, the pumpkins will have their own patch of land - I'm still learning =)

The herbs are growing nicely too - parlsey and cilantro are practically a-plenty... anybody need some?  Hehe.

And my tomatoes!  They're flowering, which is exciting - because they didn't even get to this stage last year.  Looks like I'll be buying plants from now on, as opposed to seeds like I did last year!

Anyway, with all the lettuce we've been having, in our CSA and in the garden - salads seem to be a go-to lunch.  But when we tire of salads, I like to make a nice little sandwich!  And this just happens to be my fave at the moment:

Ingredients:

2 slices of bread, toasted
lettuce
hummus 
smoked gouda slices
cajun turkey

Assemble all ingredients into a sandwich and enjoy!

Hummus is seriously my favorite sandwich condiment... especially since I HATE putting mayo on sandwiches =)

What's your favorite sandwich?  How's your garden (if you have one) shaping up??

Have a great Tuesday guys!

Barbecue Carnita Tacos

Tacos are hard to photograph! Tips?

Happy Friday guys!  I just got back from a grueling spinning class (high resistance for 90% of the class = major leg workout!).  I've been really digging it, though, and going at least 2-3 times a week.  I think it just might be the workout I can live with.  For now, anyway.

I've got the day off today and tomorrow from work (unfortunately I've got to work Easter.  Retail is a bummer.)  So I'm making use of my days off and keeping busy.  I'm cleaning out our bathroom (for one of the smaller rooms in a house, it's a lot of work!) and heading to a movie tonight with my book club girls.  Anybody read Water for Elephants?   It was our first book club book and since the movie comes out tonight, we're all heading out to see it.  Should be fun, and plus, it'll give me something to do because Andy has class until 10 tonight.

So I suppose you guys came here for some food right?  Right.

One of my favorite things to do with leftovers is turn them into tacos!  I mean seriously... it's perfect.  You have your protein already made.  You just have to chop up some vegetables.  Warm up some tortillas.  And bam!  You've got dinner made in less than 30 minutes!

Remember Wednesday's barbecue?  Well, I had a ton of brisket leftover!  So it was obvious what I would be doing with it.  Tacos!  After perusing The Food Addicts' site, I thought I'd follow suit and jazz them up by turning them into a 'healthy' carnita form (no frying here!).

And don't forget to vote in the poll for this week!  I need to make something this weekend, and more than likely it's going to Easter-related!


Ingredients:

2-3 cups leftover pulled barbecue (like this recipe here)
Fresh sweet corn (or frozen), cut from the cob - you can cook it first if you like, but I actually like raw corn
1 large tomato, seeded and diced
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
6 soft flour tortillas, warmed
1 cup romaine lettuce, chopped
Salsa and sour cream, optional

Preheat your oven broiler to the "High" setting and place the oven rack towards the top of your oven (if your broiler is in your oven instead of below it.

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spread you meat in an even layer.  Broil meat in oven until slightly browned and crisp, about 8 to 10 minutes.  Make sure to flip the meat over to get an even broil on both sides.  Alternatively you could always do the "frying" route to make your carnitas, but we're trying to be somewhat healthy around here so we didn't opt for that.

Once meat is at your desired crispness, assemble your toppings with your desired toppings (we did some fresh tomatoes, cheddar cheese, corn, and lettuce.  Simple and delicious!

See.  Dinner ready in no time flat.  Using leftovers!  So next time you open your fridge and see those leftovers, don't pass them by.  Turn them into tacos and you'll have a delicious meal in minutes!


How about you guys?  How do you use up your leftovers?  How do you fix your tacos?

What sweet treat should I make for Easter?

Mexican BLTs

I didn't say it wasn't messy.

I've been making a lot of sandwiches lately.  I blame it on my new found love (and New Year's resolution) of making our own bread.  There's just something about a freshly made loaf that makes a sandwich better, don't you think?

So the other day, I came home to a box from Foodbuzz.  Inside was some Pace Picante Sauce, thanks to Foodbuzz's Tastemakers program.  I'll be honest, I don't usually buy salsa at the grocery.  I prefer mine chunky and fresh.  But Pace is different.  It reminds me of being at a Mexican restaurant.  The salsa is usually thin and packs some heat.

I pondered what I would make with the sauce.  Should I stick with a Mexican theme since it made me nostalgic?  Or should I go a different route?  If you know me, I don't like to go with the obvious, so of course, I had to do something out of the box.  And so ties in my love for sandwiches.  BLT's in particular.


Ingredients:
Adapted from Mommy Cooks!'s recipe

Fresh baked bread, sliced
olive oil
pinch of cumin powder
pinch of chipotle chili powder  
8 slices of thick-cut bacon
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup Pace Picante Sauce
1 poblano pepper, seeded and chopped
1/2 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
1/2 cup romaine lettuce, chopped
1 tomato, sliced

Preheat oven to 400 F.




Place bacon a rack over a baking sheet and bake until crisp, about 15-20 minutes.  Drain on a paper towel-lined plate and set aside.

Brush the olive oil over the top of the pieces of bread.  Sprinkle cumin and chipotle chili powder over top of bread slices.

In a small bowl, mix together the mayonnaise, Pace Picante sauce, and the chopped poblano pepper.

Spread the mixture over the top of your bread slices.

Top bread slices with pepper jack cheese (you can do one slice if you want, but I like the cheese coming at me from both ends!)



Place the bread slices on a baking sheet and bake for about 5-7 minutes, or until cheese is nice and melted.  You could always broil it also if you want the cheese to brown and crunch up a bit.

My bacon slices were pretty long so I just snapped them in half.  Place about 4-6 pieces of bacon (and of course, you could get buck wild and go with more if you're so inclined) on top of one slice of bread.  Top with a tomato slice and finally some romaine lettuce.  Close sandwich with another slice of bread.

This was one hell of a BLT.  It comes mighty close to beating my ultimate favorite BLATE (Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado, Tomato, Egg - of the poached variety, of course).  I loved the salsa/mayo mixture, which is odd because I usually stray away from mayo at all costs.  This was new to me, this was fresh, and it was a different way to use up some Pace Picante!  Definitely give it a go if you're in the mood for a delicious BLT!

* The Pace Picante Sauce was provided to me by Foodbuzz's Tastemakers program and no additional compensation was given.  The opinions of this post are strictly my own.

* This post was also entered to take part in Foodbuzz & Denny's BACONALIA challenge for a chance to win.

Pineapple Chicken "Salad"

So happy it's Friday!  This is kind of a late Friday post, but it's been a hectic week!

I'm going to post the recipe first, and do a little bit of talking towards the end.  I must warn you... the end is a personal story.  Something that I've kept to myself for far too long.  And I really hope you read past the recipe, because it's me being vulnerable.  It's me being emotional.  And it's not something I do very often.

Ingredients:

Chicken:

2  chicken breasts
salt and pepper, to taste
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1 tablespoon olive oil

2 cups lettuce, chopped

Glaze:

1 cup apple cider
1/2 cup frozen pineapple
1/8 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon soy sauce
 

 

Preheat oven to 400 F.

In a small bowl, combine salt, pepper, cayenne, and baking powder.  Rub mixture on chicken breasts.  

 

Heat large skillet under medium high heat and add olive oil.  Add breasts to pan, cooking for about 5-7 minutes per side.  Finish in oven for about 8-10 minutes, or until white throughout.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan under medium high heat, add pineapple and apple cider.  Bring to a boil and add brown sugar and soy sauce.

Combine the corn starch and water and mix into a slurry.  Add to saucepan and bring to a boil.  Simmer for about 2 minutes and set aside.

Divide lettuce among 2 plates.  Top lettuce with chicken and spoon sauce over.  

 

This was simplicity at it's finest.  At first, I didn't think it was "complicated" enough.  I pretty much call this a "salad" because I didn't really have anything to make an actual side salad with.  And I didn't have any side dishes I could whip up very quickly, so I just decided to serve the chicken on a bed of lettuce.  But then Andy reminded me that things don't need to be complicated all the time.  Sometimes simple is just enough.  And he's right... this was a great simple meal!  Enjoy!

And now comes the part of this post where I really open up to you.  If you don't like emotional stories, or even sad ones... I don't suggest you read on.  But I hope that most of you do, because I don't open up like this very often, but I think this is something that I need to get off my chest.

First and foremost... I'd really like to thank you guys for letting me be a little "sappy" and sentimental this week on Tuesday's and Thursday's posts.  If you know me, I'm not one to be like that... at all.  I'm not a very outwardly "emotional" person.  But this week in November is always different.  I didn't think I'd be ready, or willing for that matter, to talk about this, but just allow me to be vulnerable, just once more.

6 years ago, on November 13, 2004... I lost one of my best friends.  Josh.  Josh was my boyfriend at the time.  We'd met eachother during our freshman year at college.  He was a musician, and I was a girl who had a fancy for musicians.  We fell in love and moved to Florida together, on a random whim after our first year of college.  It was the craziest thing I had ever done.  Leaving home, leaving all I knew, to be with someone and let him follow his dreams.  We were happy.  

Josh loved the ocean.  We would go to the beach almost every day.  To have the sun hit our faces and to let the waves crash into us.  It was our "paradise".  That November, my best friend Nick, came to visit us.  It had been 4 months since I'd seen any of my friends from back home, and it was awesome that Nick came  down to hang out.  

I had to work on November 13th, and so while I was working, Nick and Josh decided to go to a different beach, one farther down the strip and popular for it's "larger" waves.  I was about halfway through my shift, and I remember calling our apartment and no one answering.  At first, I thought nothing of it, but after 4 or 5 calls, and still no answer, I didn't know what to think.  I remember distantly hearing sirens while I was at work, and didn't think anything of them either, because we had a hospital that was nearby and sirens were normal.  But shortly after these, my friend Nick came frantically through the store where I worked with bloodshot eyes, just saying "Peggy, I'm sorry."  My heart immediately sank, and I didn't know what was going on.  He just kept saying we needed to go to the hospital.  That we needed to go.  I rushed out of work and sped to the hospital.  I prayed to God that Josh would be okay.  That this was just some freak accident that ended happily.  

Nick explained to me on our car ride that they were at the beach, in the ocean.  They had gone farther out than planned, and not knowing that the waves were especially strong that day, Josh had been taken under by a rip current.  It was too strong for him to get out of.  

Fortunately, a surfer named John Lane, had heard Nick's yelling for help and came to bring Josh's body back to shore.  After calling 911 and trying to perform CPR, they did all they could do to save him, but it was just too late.  They had rushed him to the hospital, but the doctors said that he'd already been gone.  

This was truly the worst day of my life.  I was 19 years old and I lost the one person that meant the most to me.  I was angry.  I had never lost someone... not even a grandparent.  This was something I believed I would never have to go through, and I did.  

It's been 6 years, and I don't think I've ever expressed this much emotion about this traumatic event.  It's hard for me to talk about it, but I feel it's easier to write.  It's a weight lifted off my shoulders, but I know it's something I will never forget.  I'm a person that believes that "things happen for a reason" and I believe that if Josh had not made an impact in my life, I wouldn't have ever stepped foot into the music store that Andy works at, and would never have met him.  I don't know.  It's a hard thing to deal with, but I know Josh would have wanted me to be happy.  And I believe I truly am.  

So today, I remember Joshua Allen Scurlock, and I'm glad you've let me open up to you.  That you've listened to my words.  Thank you.

Salmon BLT's

Sometimes the simplest things in life are some of the best. I have this ongoing suspicion that the city of Louisville is against me and finding trout. Every time I set out to cook trout for dinner, I can't find it anywhere. Not at Whole Foods, not at Kroger, not anywhere! And so yesterday was no exception, but we decided to with some Sockeye Salmon instead. And honestly, I think it was meant to be. Because these sandwiches were delicious, simple, and made me forget all about my trout woes. And plus, I'm on vacation so I couldn't stress about it too much!


Ingredients:
Adapted from Food & Wine's June 2010 issue - "Grilled-Trout BLT"

4 slices of whole wheat bread, toasted
2 6 oz. salmon fillets, skin on
3 scallions, roughly chopped
1/2 tablespoon capers
small handful italian parsley, chopped
juice from 1 lemon
zest from 1 lemon
3/4 cup mayonnaise
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil
6 slices habanero bacon (this was apparently a quick seller at Whole Foods and I HIGHLY recommend it if it's available), cooked
2 thick slices of tomato
2 large leaves of lettuce

Start by making your lemon-caper mayo. In a bowl of a food processor, combine scallions, capers, parsley, lemon juice, lemon zest, and mayonnaise. Pulse a few times until everything is combined well. Season with salt and pepper to taste and transfer to small bowl.

Light a charcoal grill under medium high heat. Rub small amount of olive oil onto salmon fillets. Season with salt and pepper. Spread desired amount of lemon mayo on salmon fillets. Grill salmon fillets, skin side down first, on direct heat for about 3-4 minutes per side.

To assemble sandwiches, place a good amount of leftover lemon mayo onto bottom slice of toast. Place lettuce leaf atop mayo and add salmon fillet. Top with tomato and 3 sliced of bacon. Close sandwich with remaining piece of toast and enjoy!

I found it really hard not to like this sandwich. Who knows, it could have turned out worse with the actual trout? We'll never know will we? But what I do know, is that salmon saved the day and made these a permanent sandwich in the sandwich rotation! Enjoy!