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!

Five Easy Pieces IV

This was definitely easy, but, my verdict:  don't bother.  Also a Mark Bittman recipe from the NYTimes. 

As Louis XVI would say on July 14, 1789:  Rien.

17. With thanks to Szechuan Gourmet restaurant: Finely chop celery and mix with a roughly equal amount of pressed or smoked tofu, chopped. Dress with peanut oil warmed with chili flakes and Sichuan peppercorns, then mixed with soy sauce.

Now I have a whole lot of leftover tofu and no where to go.

(NUMBER FOURTEEN in 2010)

Talking to strangers...

See what it gets you - a good healthy recipe!

[Edit - apparently the below is a modified Waldorf Salad recipe.  Oops - here I thought it was so clever]

A week or so ago I happened to stand in line at Wegmans near a jolly couple.  They were obviously the kind of shoppers and cooks who paid attention to the ingredients they bought and were healthy eaters.  The conversation started when she was unloading her cart and told me some tips on cooking with less salt. 

It quickly segued into a recipe for a meal that she found in weight watchers which I believe may actually be vegan.  She recited it to me and lo and behold, I remembered it.  I made it today, finally.  It's actually quite good!

1 fuji apple
1 granny smith apple
1/2 c chopped red onion (I probably had more)
A few handfuls of cranberries - I bought dried raisin/cranberry mixed together.
A cup of chopped celery - again, that may have been a little more than the recipe but it was fine.

Mix the above, and toss with just a touch of mayo and then sprinkle lemon juice on top and toss some more.  The mayo in my fridge was about 10 months expired (oops) so no mayo for this chica.  I did use lemon juice though.

Finally, just before you dig in, sprinkle walnuts on top.  THIS is key - they definitely added to the taste.

This turned out very well!  I would not call it dinner per se, but, a good snack. It was a very late lunch (just finished it) so dinner may be take out, after all that.  But this was goooooood.

So you see, talking to strangers can be a good thing.

ps.  you want to be sure you have the right mix of onion and in fact I'd probably scale back on the onion.  Either make sure it's exactly 1/2 c or even less.  I had a second helping and this scoop had a lot more onion.  Almost took my breath away.

(NUMBER SIX in 2010)