Walnut Blue Cheese Salad

A few weeks ago, I made a batch of banana bread and had a bunch of leftover walnuts. I decided to browse around online to find a new recipe to try, and I stumbled across this recipe on Food Network. It's one of Rachael Ray's recipes. I was initially hesitant to try it because, honestly, I've never really cared for most of her recipes that I've tried. They seem to lack flavor a lot of the time. But with this one, I was definitely not disappointed!

The ingredients will sound strange. As in, when my husband asked what I was making, he gave me a very strange look when I told him the ingredients. And he took his first bite very cautiously. :) But these ingredients compliment each other so well -- the sweet dressing balances out the bitter nuts and the sharp cheese -- it's just perfection!

The original recipe calls for spinach. I thought I had some left but ended up being out, so I just used romaine instead. I think it turned out really yummy, but I'm eager to try it with the spinach next time to see which way is better.

You can make this a great meatless lunch by serving breadsticks on the side. That way, it's just enough to fill you up without stuffing you so full that you can't function the rest of the day. If you serve it for dinner, you'll want to pair it up with some sort of protein because it's definitely not super hearty and filling on its own.

Ingredients:
10 ounces baby spinach
1/3 pound blue cheese crumbles
6 ounces walnuts, chopped and toasted**
1/4 cup maple syrup, warmed
1 1/2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste

Arrange spinach on a large platter. Top with walnuts and blue cheese. Set aside. Warm syrup in a small sauce pan or in the microwave, just until warmed. Pour vinegar into a small bowl and whisk in olive oil until combined. Then whisk in warmed maple syrup. Pour dressing over salad, season with salt and pepper to taste and serve.

**To toast nuts, simply chop them up a bit and put them in a dry skillet over low heat, stirring frequently, until you can smell them. This really deepens the flavor and makes them extra nutty.

Have you ever tried a recipe with weird sounding
ingredients that you ended up loving??

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Refreshing Fruit Salad

I got this recipe a few years ago from someone on Baby Center. I'm not sure who it was but there's as much credit as I can give. :) It is a yummy recipe though and I hope you enjoy it!

Refreshing Fruit Salad

1 20 oz can peach pie filling

1 cup sliced fresh strawberries

1 16 oz can drained and cubed pears

1 16 oz can drained fruit cocktail

1 16 oz can drained pineapple tidbits

Mix all ingredients in order listed. Chill for several hours.

Just before serving add 1 or 2 sliced bananas.

Serve and enjoy.

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Buffalo Chicken Salad

I was browsing around some food show episodes online and saw one for boneless buffalo wings. I instantly had a crazy craving for them and decided to turn it into a salad since I had lettuce that I needed to use up fast. Oh yum. I don't even care that the chicken is deep fried, that there's tons of cheese and fattening dressing. It's so very worth it.

If you have a Super Bowl party to host or go to, this is perfect! You can just fry up all the chicken and lay out all the other ingredients and have people make their own salads. You could even set out tortillas and/or hoagies and do buffalo chicken wraps or sandwiches, maybe with some garlic mayo. . .

I tend to make a lot of things that don't require specific measurements. Not only does that save me from having lots of little dishes to wash but it just makes things easier. So when I post a method instead of a recipe, don't let it scare you. That means you honestly can't mess it up. This is one of those.

I've mentioned before that I'm a huge wuss when it comes to spicy foods. I like a little kick, don't get me wrong, but when it's throat-on-fire and eyeball-watering spicy, I'd rather not. Because of that, I was afraid of Frank's hot sauce and went really easy on it at first, but I actually ended up adding more. The hotness is very mellowed by the olives, the lettuce and the cool ranch dressing.

Ingredients:
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, chopped into bite-sized pieces
Frank's hot sauce
vegetable oil
1 recipe ranch dressing
romaine lettuce, shredded
tomatoes, diced
green onions, chopped
olives, chopped
carrots, shredded
blue cheese crumbles
celery

Fry chicken pieces in vegetable oil until thoroughly cooked. Make sure you move them around frequently to brown evenly on all sides. Quickly drain excess oil on paper towels. Place chicken pieces into a large bowl while still warm and pour hot sauce over. Toss to evenly coat.

While chicken is cooking, prep whatever toppings you want to use.

Then assemble your salad, drizzle with ranch dressing and enjoy!

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Simple Green Salad

Well, Hillary's computer is on the fritz... hee hee. So she doesn't have any delicious looking pictures for you so she decided to ask me to post two days in a row.

This is just a simple green salad. No real recipe. All I do is buy a head of green leaf lettuce, a small bag of spinach leaves, slice up some carrots, chop broccoli, and bingo... done. I have added chopped fresh green beans, tomatoes, etc. You can do whatever you want. It's your salad :)



Serve with your favorite dressing. Yummy!

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Mexican Chicken

This chicken is really yummy. And seriously, you cannot get any easier than this recipe - there are only 4 ingredients! My husband doesn't like chicken in the crock pot (he says it has a different texture), but this is the one recipe he really likes.

Ingredients:
3-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 can El Pato Mexican tomato sauce
1 can stewed tomatoes
2 tablespoons taco seasoning

Put chicken in the crock pot. Sprinkle chicken with taco seasoning, then pour El Pato sauce and stewed tomatoes over the chicken.

Cook on low for 4 hours. Remove chicken from crock pot, shred and then return to crock pot.

Cook for another hour to allow the now-shredded meat to really absorb some of the sauce. When I serve this, I usually soften up some corn tortillas in a little bit of extra virgin olive oil on the stove, then put some of the meat mixture in and then top with cheese, sour cream and guacamole. This time, I just used the meat to make taco salads with because I had a bunch of lettuce in the fridge that was threatening to go bad on me. Since I was doing a taco salad, I added homemade ranch dressing, olives and crushed tortilla chips.

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Italian Pasta Salad

I have a few different versions of pasta salad that I like to make. Pasta salad is so easy and so versatile. It's a very easy way to use up ingredients from your fridge. You can throw in anything you want really - leftover diced chicken, artichoke hearts, bell peppers, green onions, diced red or yellow onion, tomatoes, broccoli, carrots, anything. This isn't so much a recipe as it is a method.

Ingredients:
16 ounces of tri-colored rotini
2 avocados, diced
1 cup cheese (I used mozzarella, but I don't think it had enough sharpness to it, so next time I think I'll try feta. If you do use feta, please don't use an entire cup of it! :) )
2 tomatoes, diced (or you can use a can of petite diced tomatoes)
olives (either 3/4 can of whole pitted olives that you cut in half or 2 small cans of the pre-chopped kind)
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1/2 bottle of Italian dressing
salt and pepper, to taste

Cook pasta according to package directions. Run cold water over pasta to cool it off. Or, if you're in a hurry, fill a large bowl with water and ice and submerge your colander into the ice bath. Combine cooled pasta, Italian dressing, cheeses, olives and tomatoes in a large bowl until well combined. Taste for seasonings, adding salt and pepper, if needed. Gently fold in avocado. Chill for about an hour before serving.

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