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Blueberry chicken salad

Blueberry chicken salad

Saturday is my most favorite day of the week. I love being able to sleep late, drink some of my genius husband’s brilliant coffee, and go off on my weekly shopping run with my oldest son, Alex. Our first stop is always Clausen’s Bakery in Middleton for bread, buns, and whatever else looks irresistible. Lately they’ve been baking a Pain de Epi that is awesome…it has a crisp crust that maintains it’s tenderness and a nice, springy crumb…it’s my new favorite.

The next stop is the public library where we pick up our books, dvds, and cds that we have waiting for us on our hold shelf. Then it’s off to the Westside Farmer’s Market. This week there was an enormous diversity of locally grown produce. I got sweet corn, parsley, holy basil, chard, red cabbage, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, carrots, cucumbers, cherries, and lettuce. I also got a huge red and yellow dahlia. Our last stop is the grocery store at Midvale where we get all the other essentials and then we head home. Lucky us, all that shopping and we’re back home in less than an hour and a half.

The other fabulous thing about Saturday is lunch. Today we ate fruits, cheeses, bread, and the very same salad I prepared for a potluck we had at work yesterday…but since I forgot to take a picture of it yesterday and it was so delicious I thought I’d make it again for the genius husband and the kids. This salad is simple to make, uses common ingredients found at the grocery store, and is full of healthy antioxidants and vitamins. Because the potluck was to honor a colleague who loves the color purple I was noodling with the concept of purple food but I couldn’t come up with anything other than blueberries. That’s when I decided on a salad of blueberries, chicken, arugala, baby spinach, and sunflower seeds all tossed together with oil and vinegar. For today’s batch I used leaves of red romaine instead of baby spinach, and I added one small red onion sliced thin and some parsley and holy basil that I rough-chopped, otherwise it’s the same. Both salads were made with grocery store rotisserie chicken.

The sweet and sour juiciness of the berries complements the chicken and the slightly bitter arugala balances the rich chickeny flavor. The spinach keeps the contrasting flavors from overwhelming each other. Tossed with olive oil and Vom Foss’ Star Apple vinegar it becomes a sweet, peppery, savory, delight. The salad got rave reviews from my friends at work and the husband loved it, the kids…not so much. They thought the idea of fruit with chicken was “just wacky, mom”.

Please note that if you’re not using Vom Foss Star apple vinegar you might want to add a squeeze of honey to your vinegar and oil.

Blueberry chicken salad

August 1, 2009 | Filed Under farmers market, food, fruit and nuts, geek fast food, low carb, low cal, quick and easy, recipe, soup, salad, sandwich | 4 Comments 

Hard peaches for hard times

chicken with peaches

In the food section of the NYT’s last week Mellisa Clark had an intriguing recipe for chicken thighs roasted with hard peaches. You know, the kind that you buy at the grocery store and are obviously not local, not tree ripened, and not good for anything but cooking. But that’s the point. Those somewhat odious peaches do cook up quite nicely and because they are not tree-ripened they aren’t as loaded with sugar so that they do actually make the perfect accompaniment to the beloved chicken thigh.

No actual recipe is necessary since it’s so very simple and quick. Take a pound of boneless, skinless chicken thighs and slice them into strip about 1 inch wide. Peel a pound of hard peaches and slice them into comparable slices. Mince a few cloves of garlic, an inch of fresh ginger and toss the whole mess together with just a squeeze of lemon juice and some olive oil. Arrange it all on a baking sheet and cook for 20 minutes (or until the chicken is golden brown) at at 375 degree oven. Take from the oven, toss in a handful of freshly chiffonaded basil and serve with some rice.

The flavors are delicate and light. The addition of the basil at the end provides a vibrant note and the ginger and garlic play so nicely with the peaches. For those of you that prefer chicken breasts over thighs I think you too will be happy with this preparation. I can’t help but imagine this with mangoes…I think that could be stunning.

July 26, 2009 | Filed Under beef, fish, poultry, pork, food, fruit and nuts, geek fast food, ginger, quick and easy, recipe | 2 Comments 

Eat a peach

apples

Every few years I kick myself in the ass and do something new. The last big change for me was in 2006 when I started writing this blog…huge life improvement. This year I quit my part-time job, spent the summer freelance writing and found out that I’m not into whoring my skills for little money…big money, sure. Now I’m working a interesting full-time job. This week I started going to the gym during my lunch break and again, a huge improvement…I have sooo much more energy. I bet you’re thinking…well Vanessa if you’ve got so much energy then where the heck are the recipes, where’s the food?

Honestly I haven’t been very inspired as of late. Fresh fruit, a big salad for lunch, and a family friendly meal in the evening has been the pattern for the past few weeks. I shop the farmers’ market where I collect apples and cucumbers and tomatoes (mine didn’t do so well this year), and I look at yet another bag of green beans from our CSA and I actually give up, I can’t deal with more beans. In CSA lore this will definitely be the year of the green bean. I ate some of the pickled beans and they are perfect, crisp flavorful, and tart.

I’ve also been incredibly pissed off. Sarah Palin really pisses me off and I’m sickened by her apparent lack of intelligence and lack of relevant experience. I’m pissed off that we may get a president that is worse than Bush…and that concept blows my mind. I’m incredibly pissed off that people think she’s qualified and that she has somehow improved the lot of women as a whole…give me a fracking break$@#@#!! McCain would have chosen a chimp if he thought it would help him win the election. These are depressing times and frankly I’ve been either hunkered down with a book or mindlessly watching DVDs.

At least we still have peaches, big, ripe, juicy, organic peaches with the taste and texture of the peaches of my youth. Simple honest food for these trying, lying times. There are 44 days left until the election.

This rant brought to you by a concerned citizen for Obama.

September 20, 2008 | Filed Under Local, beef, fish, poultry, pork, bits and pieces, food, fruit and nuts | 12 Comments 

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