Easy Buffalo Chicken Salad

This is great on a sandwich (as pictured) or on a big bed of lettuce as an actual salad.

This is a bit of a cheater recipe as I stated with Market Pantry chunk chicken breast in a can.

Ingredients:

* one can Market Pantry chicken breast, which I rinsed.

* I think it was one tablespoon Frank's Red Hot fiery buffalo wing sauce

* two tablespoons Bolthouse Farms blue cheese yogurt salad dressing (I love this stuff. Tastes great, and 35 calories per 2 tablespoons-- I splurged on the first bottle $3.99 at Target, but now it's on sale 2/$6)

* half a small red apple, peeled into ribbons

* somewhere around 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

I break my chicken into tiny mixes and mix it all up.

Cinnamon Raisin Cream of Wheat and Nettle Tea

So, as I hoped, feared and expected, my doctor's appt yesterday revealed an iron deficiency. Luckily, not anemia, but a drop in stored iron from my winter high of 46 to a June 10 low of 13. This means I'm back on OTC iron tablets, vitamin C and a multivitamin.

So, I whipped up this iron-rich breakfast for our summer café: cinnamon raisin cream of wheat, lavender nettle tea and Bolthouse Farms mango-cherry Immunity-C Smoothie.

I had already told myself I would splurge on one of those smoothies when I saw Target had the smoothies on sale for $3.49!!! I dilute mine and use it to take my vitamins.

The nettle tea came loose from the local Nature's Way Market. I didn't know how strong it should be so I just dumped some in the bottom of my French press with some food grade lavender. The child likes it with honey. I prefer it straight.

CINNAMON-RAISIN CREAM OF WHEAT
Heat to almost boiling:
- 1 cup vanilla almond milk
- some sugar (less than 2 tablespoons)
- about one heaping tablespoon cinnamon
- one large handful raisins
Then when just starting to bubble add:
- 4 tablespoons farina

Stir until thickened

Mango cherry smoothie

I'm addicted to those Bolthouse Farms Immunity Boost Mango smoothies. At Target, they are $3.99 for 32 ounces (which after my employee discount and red card savings drops to $3.41) while the same bottle at Giant is $4.29.

So, I decided to try and make my own.

- I started with organic frozen mango chunks because I couldn't find any other frozen mango and wasn't sure when I was shopping when I would attempt this and didn't want fresh mangoes to rot. I used about 2 cups.
- I added about 5 ounces of that nasty Bolthouse Farms mango protein smoothie
And grated, blended to a fine pulp
- I added about 3 teaspoons frozen orange juice concentrate
- 15 or so fresh cherries
And grated, blended to a fine pulp
- then I added a mango Greek yogurt

Lunch for breakfast

The non-dairy options in this house looked bleak. I offered my daughter homemade granola, eggs or, if school lunch wasn't going to be PB&J, PB&J. She wanted PB&J but the school lunch options were hot dog (which she doesn't like) or cheesesteak (dairy) so it's a PB&J day.

For breakfast, I made her raw broccoli with Newman's Own Sesame Ginger dressing, some of the Bolthouse Immunity-C boost (mango/cherry, I'm an addict-- tried the mango 21 protein by the same company and it had to be one of the nastiest things I've ever tasted) and a Boca chk*n patty on soft wheat bread (yes, the store-bought kind).

Maybe today I will make bread... Or biscuits.