Life is a bowl of cherries...and chicken

I love this time of year! All the fresh local fruits and vegetables. There's a wonderful orchard near my house where you can go to pick all manner of fruits throughout the growing season. Yesterday, I went cherry picking, so I have a lovely basket of dark, sweet cherries just begging to be experimented with. I thought...well grapes are good in chicken salad...why not cherries? So here is what I came up with.

Cherry Chicken Salad

Ingredients 

2 Cooked Chicken Breasts*
1/2 cup Cherries
1/4 cup Walnuts
1 stalk Celery
2 Tbsp Mayonnaise 
Salt and White Pepper to taste (I'm sure Black Pepper would work just fine too.)

• Cut chicken breasts into small cubes, or shred. Either way is tasty.
• Pit and quarter cherries.
• Rough chop walnuts and celery.
• Mix all ingredients with mayonnaise, salt and pepper.

Can be served on a bed of greens or made into sandwiches...whatever strikes your fancy. I opted for whole wheat wraps with arugula. The spice of the arugula added a nice dimension.     

*I cooked a whole chicken in the crock pot and took the meat from that. Typically when I make chicken salad I poach the breasts. 
Poaching Tips


  

 

Something Fishy...

Steamed Tilapia with Mango Cucumber Salsa

Ingredients

2 Tilapia Filets

Orange Chili Marinade

Mango Cucumber Salsa

• Place filets in marinade and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
• Remove filets from marinade and place on heat resistant plate. 
• Lightly salt and pepper fish* 
• Place plate inside bamboo steamer and steam until fish is white and flaky, about 10 minutes. (Baking the fish would work as well, I was just experimenting and it turned out quite nicely)
• Carefully remove fish from plate with a spatula. Plate will be hot. Duh.
• I put the fish on a bed of greens with sliced avocado, but you could also use rice or even quinoa.
• Top with Salsa and serve! Preferably with ice cold Margarita.

Marinade

(Amounts are approximate, as I was just kind of dumping stuff together)

Juice of Half an Orange

1 T Orange Zest (I may have gotten a bit carried away with my new zester)

1 T Vegetable Oil

2 T Apple Cider Vinegar

1 T Lime Juice (I actually had no limes so I used Limeade)

1 t Crushed Red Pepper

Salt and Pepper

• Whisk all ingredients together in the container you will be using to marinate the fish. 

Salsa

1 Smallish Cucumber

1 Mango

1/2 Jalapeno Pepper

2 T Black Beans

1/2 Red Onion

1 t Fresh Cilantro

1 T Apple Cider Vinegar

Juice of Half an Orange

Pinch of Salt

• Peel and chop Cucumber and Mango**
• Remove seeds and chop Jalapeno. (Seeds can be left in for more heat)
• Finely chop Red Onion
• Rinse, dry and chop Cilantro***
• Mix all ingredients in a small bowl

Serves 2

*I actually used this fabulous Passion Fruit Chili Pepper Salt I got from www.saltywahine.com They're a Hawaiian company with a bunch of really great seasonings.

**An easy way to chop mangoes http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_cut_a_mango/ Do not make the same mistake I did and wait until you have already made a mess of the mango to look at this. It will be too late.

***I recently learned a nifty trick for drying just-washed greens. Place them in the center of a dish towel and draw the four corners of the towel together. Swing it around your head like a lasso. Yell yee haw. ( Yee haw optional) Warning: If greens are very wet, there will be a splash zone, so you may want to take the party outside.  

Getting Started...

April 13, 2012

So I've decided to start a blog...though if by some strange happenstance someone is actually reading this, that fact is evident. I don't know that I have anything new and fascinating to share with the world, but I like to cook and I like to garden, and I do both by trial and error, so if someone somewhere can learn from my mistakes, offer advice, tell me I'm fabulous, or teach me how not to write run-on sentences, then this forum has served its purpose. 

I would like to start by relating a recipe that I tried the other day. It was one of those quick, thrown together things that actually ended up being pretty tasty. Let's call it:

Spring Pesto Rice

Ingredients:

1 C uncooked brown rice

2 Spring Onions chopped

1 Bunch Asparagus, woody ends trimmed off *

4 Hard Boiled eggs **

1/2 C Spring Herb Pesto (see below)

• Bring rice, 2 cups water and a pinch of salt to a boil. Reduce to medium low heat and simmer until all water has been absorbed. about 45 minutes.
• Steam asparagus and chop into 1-2 inch pieces.
• Mix pesto, onions and asparagus into rice. Salt to taste.
• Garnish with crumbled hard boiled eggs.

 

Spring Herb Pesto

Ingredients:

One Bunch Fresh Mint, stems removed

One Bunch Fresh Parsley, stems removed

1/2 C Roasted Almonds, roughly chopped

1/4-1/2 C Olive Oil 

Put all ingredients in food processor and process until smooth. The amount of olive oil depends on your pastiness preference. 

* For trimming asparagus: hold woody end and bend stalk until it snaps. I've heard that you can then use that stalk as a guide to chop all of the others, but I like to snap them all individually :)

* Easy Hard Boiled eggs:  Put eggs in a pot. Fill pot with cold, salted water about 1 inch above eggs. Cover. Bring to a boil. Remove pot from heat and let sit, covered for 13 minutes. Transfer eggs to cold water. I find the eggs easier to peel if they are somewhat old. 

Makes 4 Servings 

I happened to have the pesto left over from another recipe and hard boiled eggs already made so it was very quick and easy to put together!