Turns out there a lot of things you can't make chicken salad from

You can't make chicken salad from chicken shit

Elise,

                It’s summer, all I eat are whole meal salads and the foundation of any whole meal salad repertoire is chicken salad. Myriad variations on chicken, some additions and a dressing.

                Browsing food blogs and cooking sites, I cut and paste nearly every chicken salad recipe I come across. Or every one that doesn’t ask for miracle whip, cans of sweetened fruit or tomatillos. Tomatillos are everywhere this time of year and my one experiment with them years ago has turned me off them forever. I don’t recall exactly what went wrong, but like any serious trauma, I instinctively avoid the culprit.

                This is my week of chicken salads.

                Monday-   Chicken Club Salad from Martha Stewart.  This was OK, but not repeatable. Nancy Silverton in Twist of the Wrist has a chicken salad with avocado and bacon that is far superior. http://www.marthastewart.com/313659/chicken-club-salad?search_key=chicken%20salad

 

                Tuesday- Chicken and Chutney salad. Also from Martha and also ok but not repeatable. Any curried chicken salad is going to be nearly as easy and much more tasty. To be fair, I used my home made kefir instead of the sour cream, and that probably hurt.  http://www.marthastewart.com/338188/chutney-chicken-salad?search_key=chicken%20salad

                Wednesday- Chicken, Chick Pea and Pesto salad. Yuck. The flavors and textures work at cross purposes and the result resembles something that might have been served at the Eco-House at some small, liberal arts college, having been prepared by a freshman from Larchmont who was so distracted by his glorious new tie dye and the pain in his recently pierced and infected ear lobe, that he failed to notice that these ingredients are meant for three separate dishes.  I managed to finish one small bowl and then rinsed the pesto off, fed the chicken to the dogs, and discarded the rest.  http://www.marthastewart.com/314419/chicken-chickpea-and-pesto-salad?search_key=chicken%20salad

                Thursday- Asian Chicken Salad with Wasabi Dressing. I couldn’t eat it. I tasted the dressing before finishing the salad and threw it all away. This could be the stuff you dip your finger in and then offer to your child in an attempt to dissuade him from biting. http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/asian-chicken-salad-with-wasabi-dressing

                Friday- Curried Smoked Chicken Salad with Wild Rice. Discouraged by my week of experimenting, I returned to an old fave. I have made this a number of times and here are my adaptations. Short grain brown rice instead of wild rice. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts instead of smoked chicken, more chutney, more raisins and about half the oil. Now that I am trying to eat whole grains a few times a week, this one is back in the rotation and I couldn’t be happier. It is the kind of thing I can keep eating long after I am technically full. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Curried-Smoked-Chicken-and-Wild-Rice-Salad-12041

                Saturday- Larb Chicken Salad. Found on Epicurious, I altered the recipe somewhat, doubled it and served it to friends. It was a hit. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Larb-Chicken-Salad-5680

                Sunday- Hamburgers. On the seventh day, they rested.

Larb Chicken salad

Yield: Serves 4-6

Ingredients

• 1 1/3  cup fresh lime juice
• ½ cup fish sauce (nam pla)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 TB  chili-garlic sauce

• 3 pounds ground chicken and or turkey
• 1 ½  cup thinly sliced green onions
• 1 cup thinly sliced shallots
• 1 tablespoon thinly sliced Thai chilies or serrano chilies
• 1cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
• 1cup chopped fresh mint leaves

• Mixed greens, Asian greens or baby cooking greens
• Olive oil

Preparation

Whisk first 4 ingredients in medium bowl to blend; reserve sauce.

Cook the ground chicken over medium high heat until cooked through, breaking up meat with spoon. Add green onions, shallots and chili pepper. Stir until vegetables are tender and most of liquid has evaporated, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in sauce. 

Right before serving, stir in the cilantro and mint.

Toss the greens with a good dousing of olive oil, enough to well coat the leaves, and then toss these greens into the chicken.

       

Call it Salad

Elise,

                I went to the farmer’s market on Sunday. Our farmer’s market should really be called the vendors who drive up from commercial operations in NC market. The fruits and vegetables are conventional, to use Whole Food’s delicate term. Maybe a little fresher than I might get at the store, but no better.

                However, there I was and the cupboards were bare and I had had nothing but protein shakes for two days, so I forged ahead. I found two eggplants and some small yellow tomatoes. No basil to be had. Basil scented soap? Basil scented candles? Dried basil in a cunning little wreath tied up with raffia and adorned with small wooden discs painted to resemble genetically modified tomatoes? Yes, Yes and Yes. Fresh basil? No.

                I had chosen one white eggplant and one traditional purple eggplant. I have always shied away from the white ones. As with those spooky white asparagus, they look like something that has spent so long underground in solitary confinement  that they have certainly developed a dangerous psychosis and are best avoided. No eye contact, no sudden movements, reach slowly for the purple eggplant and sidle away.

                But now the colorless globes in their Aryan brotherhood get-ups were all around me. I had to take one. I cooked it as soon as I got home, before it could be a bad influence on the purple eggplant. I cooked them together so I can’t say if one tasted better.

                This is what I did. Cut the eggplants into bite sized pieces and spread them across a sheet pan. Doused them with olive oil and salt and roasted them in a 450 oven. I pretty much CTSOOTF*. When they were browned and nearly crispy, I took them out and let them cool. Then I tossed in some halved cherry tomatoes, some basil I had found at the store, a splash of balsamic, more salt and a few grinds of pepper. 

                This is what I remember of a recipe that I got from a friend’s cousin in Millbrook NY of all places. It is marvelous. The eggplant is soft, oily and salty, the balsamic is sweet, and the tomatoes are there so you can call it a salad.

                Love, Margaret

*"Cooked the shit out of the fuckers."

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Dear Marg,

I feel like I'm always posting about rhubarb. Actually, come to think of it, as much as I like it I'm surprised there aren't more rhubarb posts. I made rhubarb lunar cake that I thought I'd written about but don't find. Hmm, another opportunity.

Anyway, I wanted to share my Strawberry Rhubarb Pie with you. I make at least one every year, so I was some what concerned when I couldn't remember what recipe I used. I knew I had a good one that I had used over and over, but couldn't find it in all my usual spots (Martha Stewart's Pies and Tarts, Rosie's Bakery All-Butter, Fresh Cream, Sugar-Packed, No-Holds-Barred Baking Book nor Mrs. Bentley's). Some frantic searching led me into the back-up stash of cookbooks in the living room where I found it in Christopher Kimball's Dessert Bible. Whew. I'm way too young and way too fond of this pie to have that kind of mental lapse be permanent. 

The book is in Seattle and I'm in Idaho so can't tell you much about the recipe. When you google 'dessert bible rhubarb pie' you get some very strange results. Like this one from TheLutheran.org:

A mean rhubarb pie or 'Ethics What you make of life from the leftovers after the main course of salvation has been served.'

It's a basic fruit pie - fruit, sugar, thickener, a squeeze of lemon juice. It's thickened with tapioca. In my experience, tapioca works well as a thickener for fruit with a lot of juice and these Skagit Valley farmers market strawberries certainly qualified. 

I used the pate brisee recipe from Martha's Pies and Tarts. I pretty much always use that one. 

Up with rhubarb!

love, Elise

Rib Ticklin' Good

 

Dear Marg,

I made ribs when Mot and Kevin came to visit. They are both big meat eaters so this seemed a good time to experiment with falling-off-the-bone ribs. Usually I just grill the ribs from raw and put the sauce on at the last minute. Flavorful, but an extra dental work-out. I wanted to learn how to make those tender morsels and their visit gave me the push I needed.

After a very quick perusal of Epicurious I setlled on Orange and Soy Glazed Baby Back Ribs. I'm a lazy hostess as you know so didn't spend hours researching recipes and certainly didn't do any test-runs. Just lit on this one that sounded good, read the reviews and went with it.

The recipe wants you to broil them but I wanted the grilled flavor. And there's my one piece of advice - watch them like a border collie watches a tennis ball or they'll burn up dead. I learned over the course of the weekend that Kevin is a passionate, committed griller. Unfortunately I didn't discover this until after he took over from Amos The Absentminded. I think he couldn't stand the black smoke boiling out of the grill.

Nonetheless the ribs were a-mazing. Truly. Beyond amazing.

 And because it was Mot there was chocolate cream pie.

Wish you could have been there!

love, Elise

Further Adventures with Kefir

Elise-

                I’m still making kefir, producing kefir, growing kefir. Whatever.  All I know is that the kefir grains are growing and growing and I have more and more kefir. The dogs are now eating kefir. His Lordship has taken some and enjoyed it. And still the kefir grains continue to grow. I think the person who made that movie, The Blob, was growing kefir. 

                I’m not complaining. OK, I’m complaining a little. But the kefir is good and since I discovered the second fermentation, it is really good.

                For a second fermentation, I strain the kefir the first time to remove the grains. I then put it in a new, clean jar, add some citrus peel or a few berries, something to encourage more fermentation, grapes would probably work. The permeable cover goes back on the jar and it spends another night on the counter. 

   

             That’s it. Twice fermented kefir.

                I use it immediately or put it in the fridge for later. I think it is good for it to have a second day with the permeable cover, let it to adapt to the chilly environs with plenty of air. After that I leave a real lid on it. Once the real lid is on the jar, it needs to breathe every 24 hours. It also needs to exhale, and if not allowed this respite, the jar can explode. I don’t think His Lordship attends to this part. I’ve warned him about the risk of explosion, but he remains cavalier.

              

  Salad dressing or raita;

with berries, dried fruit or nuts; 

in smoothies; kefir is an ingredient that can go from sweet to savory, from breakfast to dinner, from counter to table. Like the perfect pocketbook, it will overcome cheap shoes, like real wicker, it will allow you to say, “It’s real wicker.” In other words, you can gloat.

                And I have too many Kefir grains. If anyone wants a starter kit, I’ll provide grains, a jar and a quart of raw milk. The smugness will come from you.

Peanut Butter Cookies, Squared

Dear Marg,

Too bad Paleo-istas can't eat peanuts.

All my love, Elise