Chicken Salad with cherries and almonds (AKA the lightbulb came on about organization)

Good morning

In the quest to become more organized while cooking, and, not waste as much food, I had the brilliant idea this weekend that when I bought foods that lent themselves to the sous-chef treatment, I would pre-prep them the minute I got home and put them in containers. 

I have been so much better in the past year about buying non-processed foods.  I wasn't all that bad before.  For instance, I almost never would buy frozen packaged foods, but, I did buy more boxed food than I do these days.  I still buy canned foods but I figure those have minimal processing especially if you label read. 

However, buying fresh means you gotta start eating them right away.  And not lose interest in them.  My theory is that I'd buy all this good stuff, but since my food planning is non-existent - primarily "last minute" ideas, I'd open the fridge, see everything still in wrapping (like celery, cauliflower, rotisserie chicken) and pass it over in favor of something easy.

So, tada.  My Sunday afternoon, after a lovely brunch with friends, consisted of food shopping and when I got home, a glass of chardonnay and some food prep.  In addition to making my crock pot mac and cheese (posted yesterday) I also chopped and bagged the celery, chopped and stored the fresh mango, and shredded the rotisserie chicken.  All in containers, waiting to be used.

And just now, moments ago, I decided to make easy chicken salad for a sandwich at lunch.  Pulled out the chicken, ready to go.  Pulled out the celery, ready to go.  I buy dried cherries like they are going out of style, and I always have almonds and walnuts handy.  The almonds are toasting. 

A little fresh lemon, some mayonnaise (not from scratch, that will be another time), and it's all tossed together.  I'm hoping this organization will pay off - I hate wasting food. 

Recipe:

Rotisserie chicken, shredded
Chopped celery (as much or little as you like)
Handful of dried cherries
Toasted Almonds
Mayo
Lemon juice
Salt
Pepper

Toss it all together.  I imagine some onion would have been good, too.

For contrast, here was one item from the fantastic Sunday brunch at Orso:

Bacon Sticky Buns!

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaack! (Chicken Tagine with Apricots)

I cooked a new recipe tonight!  In fact, I had another bright idea that I hesitate to say out loud because of the debacle this "52 meals in one year" idea has turned out to be.  What is this, three (four??) years in a row I've tried to actually cook 52 new things?  The heck with a schedule of cooking once a week, I just wanna do this once, no matter what it takes - even if I have to cook 52 meals during the month of December!

I really don't understand how Julie (of Julie and Julia fame) managed to cook EVERY THING in Julia Child's cookbook in one year.  That was, what, over 500 recipes?  She cooked something new every bloody night?  Actually it would be roughly ten new things a week.  Do the math!  Three nights a week she made two new things?  How much money did she spend on ingredients not to mention utensils?  If she really did this, and wasn't fudging it, a hat tip to her.  Not just any old hat, either. 

So, my new idea (loosely based on Julie and Julia):

I am going to TRY (cough cough) to cook every recipe in David Lebovitz's book "The Sweet Life in Paris".  I just finished reading it today (fantastic book), and while reading the stories I skimmed each recipe in the book.  Many of them seem quite easy - a lot of ingredients, and in some cases perhaps time consuming, but easy nonetheless.

The one I made tonight was Chicken Tagine with Apricots (and blanched almonds, and a whole lotta spices).

The question remains:  who will play David, and who will play me, in the movie?  hahaha

I will post the actual recipe here shortly.