Chicken salad variations

To use up the cucumber salad, my husband and I opted to make chicken salad. We had some skinless, boneless chicken in the freezer that he cooked.

We mixed the cucumber salad with the chicken once we chopped it. Then we added spices: Italian seasoning, garlic pepper. I also added golden raisins.

I split the chicken into two bowls, one heavy on the cucumber and the other heavy on the meat. The meaty bowl got mayo while the other got serious amounts of buffalo sauce. I added soft goat cheese crumbles to both.

Served on apple fritter bread with heaps of fresh spinach.

Beverage was a strawberry yogurt smoothie. (Serves three.)

- two cups strawberries

- one container strawberry rhubarb noosa yogurt

- one carnation instant breakfast packet in French vanilla

- about four ounces very vanilla soy milk

More garden pickling

Three more fairly large pickling cucumbers so we made three more jars of pickles and let our neighbor friend help.

We made one dill jar, one basil dill and one chive dill. (Using herbs from my garden.)

We used the Ball Blue Book as our guide.

Dinner is a vegetable

We went for my birthday ice cream at 5 pm, a nice peanut butter ice cream dusty road at the Purple Cow Creamery. Heavenly!

Now, it's 6:30 and I made some organic carrot sticks, raw cucumbers and fried up some Wegmans feta and spinach peorogies in leftover oil from last night.

That should make up for a lack of real food.

Friday update

Yesterday for dinner I let my 7-year-old daughter make one of my multigrain pizza crusts. I read the recipe out loud and she found ingredients, selected measuring spoons and did the measuring. We topped the pizzas with chicken (leftover from her earlier meal with the grandparents at TGIFridays), black olives, broccoli, pineapple and several kinds of cheese. It was the best pizza ever.

Today child had peach muffins and Very Vanilla soy milk for breakfast.

For lunch I packed her:
- leftover "mighty green soup"
- banana
- juice box
- cucumber slices
- dipping sauce for the cucumbers of 2/3 whipped cream cheese and 1/3 Goddess dressing
- ritz style crackers

"Mommy, I want a sandwich."

My daughter requested a sandwich. A sandwich is not your run of the mill item in this house. I try to oblige.

The pasta is leftover pesto tortellini.

The fruit is something from the Easton Farmer's market. It has a skin like a peach, is shaped like a small gourd and has white interior. Daughter loves them IF I peel the fuzzy peach-style skin off them. They also have a pit like a peach. Last time, she picked something similar, but it had an orange interior and the texture and flavor of a plum.

The sandwich is my homemade honey oat bread, with a slice of cucumber, two slices of deli counter ham (another oddity in this house) and a squirt of Goddess dressing.

Tortellini with pesto and garden salad

The pesto I made earlier (see today's previous post) went over cheese tortellini for a quick dinner. Two heaping teaspoons were plenty for the one bag of tortellini, so we'll be making pesto garlic toast for dinner tomorrow and freezing some more sauce.

The salads we served were all greens from our garden, red leaf, green leaf, spinach and sorrel. Green pepper from the garden. Carrots and cucumbers from the store. Dehydrated peas from Forks Mediterranean Deli. I had Newman's Own Sesame Ginger dressing. Child has vegan Goddess Dressing. Husband had Annie's Cowgirl Ranch.

To keep the meal vegan, watch your dressings and I recommend a tofu-spinach ravioli for the tortellini.

More pickling

The first jar of solar pickles lasted less than 2 days. Child and I decided to repeat the experiment, using up our leftover farm fresh cucumbers and carrots.

We used one pint sized ball jar for each.

Ingredients
(in the order we put them in the jar)

In the cuke jar
- a big handful of dill from the garden
- between 1/2 and 3/4 teaspoon fresh ground salt
- 3/4 teaspoon minced garlic
- 3/4 of a large farm fresh cucumber, sliced, and artfully stuffed into jar
- 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
- fill half the jar with apple cider vinegar
- add 2 teaspoons It's a Dilly (I'm hoping the lemon flavor will add some pizzazz to my pickles)
- fill the rest of the jar with water
SHAKE

For the carrots:
- large amounts of dill from the garden
- 1 heaping teaspoon minced garlic
- 3/4 teaspoon fresh ground salt
- 3/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
- carrots, in sticks, to fill jar
- fill half of jar with apple cider vinegar
- fill the rest of the jar with water

Green-laden ham sandwiches

Today's sandwiches made me wish I had more of everything for another round, but I don't. Sad.

-Archer Farm Seven Grain bread
-a hearty layer of Lost Gourmet's kale-cream cheese- zucchini dip
- lettuce, sorrel and spinach from the garden
- the last of the homemade pickles
- a handful of the market pantry six blend Italian cheese
- market pantry applewood ham slices

That was practically a Target/garden sandwich.

Sandwiches and salad

Got an applewood smoked ham quarter for $3 at Target. It's certainly not a quality ham or a big ham, but it's sliced for sandwiches and has 1.66 pounds. I heated it with water in the crock pot.

We made sandwiches on bagels from NY Bagel & Deli in the 25th Street shopping plaza, leftover mozzarella from Calandra's in Nazareth, and that kale-zucchini-cream cheese dip from Lost Gourmet at the Pheonixville Farmers Market yesterday.

We served with an Asian style salad that began life as a Fresh Express Very Veggie with some greens and sorrel from my garden, dried peas, dried pineapple, cucumber and Newman's Own Ginger Sesame dressing.

Using the sun

Although I don't have the right ingredients, and we all know I never do, I decided to harness the power of the sun and make new pickles. Gayle did some research and sent her mom's recipe, which I posted here.

We don't have pickle cukes, but since we have some from the farmers market and they are super fresh and crisp. I plan on eating these later today or tomorrow so I'm not worried about them getting soggy.

While looking in the basement for my spare butter dishes, I found one of those really big jars which I washed out and started a batch of sun tea in.

I went out to the garage and retrieved my Ball jars, the pint sized ones. Washed one and put some garlic, probably too much, and a big handful of dill from the garden in the bottom. Added salt. Had the child fill it with cucumber slices and tossed in some carrot sticks.

Poured in some apple cider vinegar, filled the rest of the jar with water, layered the lids on, shook it well, and put it in the sun beside the tea.

Now, we wait.

Farmers' Markets

Today, my family and I went with my friend Gayle to meet other friends, Kev and Tracy, at the Collegeville and then Phoenixville Farmers Markets.

I spent a total of $39, which includes some contributing to parking and a almond milk/ green tea/ some sort of wheat grass iced latte.

$9 went to Iced by Betsy for some incredible cupcakes.

Got a canning guide and free recipe booklet from the folks that make Ball jars. It has recipes for apple butter, salsa, chutney, pickles, even barbecue sauce.

Got cucumbers, zucchini, zesty white and regular carrots. Lime hummus, wow did that have an unusual fresh flavor and it wasn't made with tahini. Had to buy some ($5) to try and replicate it in the future.

But the real winner for culinary creativity was the lady who made kale-zucchini-cream cheese dip. $6 for 8 ounces. Expensive, but another combination of flavors I had to enjoy. And I'm a minimal connoisseur of kale.

When we got home, we made a giant platter: cheddar, pepper jack, Calandra's fresh mozzarella, crackers, toasted Archer Farms multi-grain bread, cucumbers, carrots, the kale dip, the hummus, strawberries, figs from Forks Mediterranean Deli, unsalted cashews, leftover lamb shawarma from the deli... Oh! And greens and sorrel and fresh dill and fresh parsley all from my garden.

And between my husband and I, we conjured a sandwich of toast, kale dip, greens/sorrel, cucumbers, a touch of Annie's Cowgirl ranch, dill and a thin layer of mozzarella.

Pesto chicken, summer salad & honey corn

Today's dinner contains one stick of butter. Only one!

My dad and his wife are coming for dinner to bring my daughter her birthday presents. I had my husband get sine chicken out of the freezer. I thought I had three packs of 2 breasts but when my husband thawed them all, I realized each pack had three whole breasts which = a heckuva lot of chicken.

My husband and daughter picked some lettuce and herbs from the garden.

First course:
SUMMER SALAD
- greens (from the garden)
- French sorrel (from the garden)
- 2 strawberries for each salad
(one sliced, one whole)
- one cucumber, sliced
- choice of dressings: Newman's own raspberry walnut dressing

Homemade biscuits
Honeyed corn
Leftover rhubarb cobbler
Chocolate Berry Earl grey iced tea

PESTO CHICKEN:
- 1/4 cup parsley
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup roasted sunflower seeds
- about 4 cups basil
(mix in food processor to form a sauce)

Slather chicken breasts with sauce and brown in butter.

Sun pickles

Got this message today from a friend:

"My sister brought up "sun pickles". I thought, what fun. Think E and mommy would love it.

I have quart jars if you want to do this...

Use qt size canning jars. In the bottom of each jar place
1 piece of dill weed stem
1 clove of garlic

Now pack into the jar as many whole pickle cukes as you can. (Our mom used the little ones.)

Add 1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 cup vinegar
water to fill jar

Close jar with canning lid (got those too!) and put out in the sun for the afternoon.  You'll have nice crispy pickles. I don't know about long term storage. Ours never lasted that long.

I looked online for others.

Naturally knocked-up slices hers:
http://www.naturallyknockedup.com/recipe-dill-sun-pickles/

And this one from cooks.com uses a sun tea jar. That's a lot of pickles!
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1836,144160-245199,00.html

there is many, many more on the web.

If you make them, blog it. I'll come over and help eat them!"

I was very much looking forward to this, and almost went out to the garage to look for my jars when I discovered with horror that my tortoise ate all but one of my 12 cucumber plants. Don't worry, she got the last one the next day. :-(

Christmas Chicken Salad

Today is my little Christmas mixer with one of my editing clients. He told me he'd prepare hot mulled cider that we could mix with rum, cheese and crackers. When he interviewed me, he served me real tea. With loose leaves and a tea pot. That's when I knew I could work with this guy.

So, he said I could bring something but no hinted as to what.

What would complement but not upstage cheese and crackers, preferably with some fruit/veg matter?

I decided on chicken salad.

Today's Christmas Chicken Salad
- one can white meat chicken, chopped (12.5 ounces)
- half a large cucumber, diced
- one box 'sour' peach infused golden raisins
- 1/4 cup blueberries and raspberries, frozen, and thawed (reserve about two to three tablespoons berry juice for dressing)

For the dressing:
- less than 1/4 cup light mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoons lemon-dill mustard (Archer Farms)
-1/2 teaspoon organic four-color pepper
-1/2 teaspoon country herb blend
- juice reserved from berries

Mix dressing. In a bowl, mix salad ingredients. Apply dressing. Stir and chill long enough to allow flavors to blend.

Vegetarian Provolone Garden Club Wrap

I made yummy vegetarian garden wraps today with Morningstar breakfast strips (bacon) and extra sharp provolone. I layered in them:

• Romaine lettuce
• carrots
• cucumber (from the garden)
• one strip Morningstar vegetarian bacon
• extra sharp provolone
• sunflower seeds
• organic ranch dressing

Cucumber Sandwiches

After I pulled my back today, my husband made one of my favorite summer snacks for me:
Cucumber sandwiches!

- Cream cheese
- cucumber
- It's a dilly

on crackers or bread.

In this case, on multigrain/rye crackers.

Tammy's lunch: Warmed Stuffed Dates

The salad for Tammy's lunch was simple: spring mix my mother-in-law brought with the Very Veggie Dole prepackaged salad, added some cucumber from the store, a diced green pepper from my garden, and lots of raisins and sunflower seeds.

Dessert was fresh pineapple and strawberries.

The entree was leftover sicilian.

The beverage was the house specialty of green tea and rose tea.

But the warm appetizer stole the attention.
I modified my stuffed date recipe.

I sliced the dates in half and coated my skillet with walnut oil. I warmed the skillet on low, added a dash of cinnamon across the bottom of the pan, and added the dates. I increased heat to almost medium and let the dates cook for about four minutes. Then I flipped them. Waited four minutes or so and removed them from the skillet.

I turned the heat off from under the skillet, added a slice of morningstar vegetarian bacon for each whole date, waited a minute, and flipped the bacon. Since the heat was off and the skillet was slowly cooling, I left the bacon in there and swiped some cream cheese into each of my date halves. Then I closed the dates and returned them to their original shape.

Once all the dates were stuffed, I wrapped each date in fake bacon and returned them to the skillet where I baked them in a preheated oven (400 degrees) for about ten minutes.

Modified Ugly Bean Dip

We needed a quick vegetable-rich dinner, so we made ugly bean dip. We modified the recipe based on what we had on hand:

Sauce
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup sugar
(I did not use it all)
Boil and cool.

Dip ingredients, mix in bowl:
red onion to taste, finely diced (about 3/4 cup for me)
3 small tomatoes from the garden, diced
about 1 cup finely diced cucumber
about 1 cup yellow corn
one can black beans, drained

Pour sauce on ingredients and stir.

We didn't have the fancy scoop Fritos so we ended up dumping the fritos on top of our dip on the plate and spooning it into our mouths instead of dipping.

Cucumber salad

Shannon made cucumber salad for her family reunion. She doesn't measure so I figure I'd make an approximation of what she did, because it looks very yummy.

Shan's Cucumber Salad

• 1/2 one large red onion, diced
• 1 large can black olives, either sliced or mooshed by hand
• About 4 large cucumbers, in large chunks
  
• Ranch dressing (somewhere 2/3 cup?)
• Apple cider vinegar (around one cup?)
• Flax seed (about three teaspoons)
• garlic powder (about four tablespoons, to taste)
• dill or It's a Dilly (about four tablespoons, to taste)

Combine and chill. Serve once flavors blend.

Salad wraps

To use up some produce and get some veggies into our systems, we had salad wraps for lunch. Depending on your dressing and whether or not you add cheese, they can be vegan or vegetarian.

I had my daughter peel a carrot. My mom had brought a cucumber and tomatoes from her garden. I contributed a pepper from my garden.

I got out some cheese leftovers: gruyère, smoked gouda, ricotta salata and cheddar.

I used the ranch yogurt dressing from Wegmans. And because she got to assemble it herself, my daughter is eating hers to the last drop.

We had red leaf lettuce and some Italian salad blend, all of which was starting to look a little less than perfect. Yeah, we could have had salads in a bowl, but putting them in a wrap and eating them with your hands is fun-- and silly.