My Favorite Chicken Salad

Yes, I’ve been absent.  Yes, I’ve been sick again.  I think something is wrong with the whole world right now.  Everyone is getting sick and staying sick.  Oh, well, to a more pleasant subject…

This is my favorite chicken salad recipe.  I just love all the different flavors in it.  It’s good to eat by itself, or would be great eaten on a crescent roll.

Tropical Chicken Salad

2 cups cooked and chopped chicken
1 cup celery
1 can pineapple tidbits
1 can mandarin oranges
1 - 2 tablespoons green onions
some red and green grapes
1 cup GF mayo or ½ cup GF mayo + ½ cup GF ranch dressing

Combine all ingredients.  Mix well.  Top with cashews and coconut.

Rosemary Chicken Wrap

One of my favorite ways to use leftover chicken (semi-plain) is to make these wraps. I choose to use white American cheese slices because it gets so creamy when it melts (I use the Wal-Mart Great Value brand). I made 2 today, but Braden took a bite of one (the bigger one) and declared it his. A mother sacrifices so much for her children.

Rosemary Chicken Wraps

Two corn tortillas
Some leftover chicken
Rosemary Garlic Seasoning
Some fresh spinach
About 4 slices of white American cheese

Sprinkle some rosemary garlic seasoning (or rosemary and some other herbs) onto small strips of chicken (just somewhat bite-sized) and microwave it for about 30 seconds. Put a slice of cheese on each tortilla, top with some fresh spinach, the chicken, and another slice of cheese. Microwave for 30 to 45 seconds, until cheese is melted and creamy.

A Healthier Breakfast Burrito

When you think of breakfast burritos, do you immediately feel your arteries clog up? This is not that kind of burrito, but it is really good. I would have eaten two (hey, corn tortillas are small), but Carter got up from his nap in time to eat quite a bit of mine.
I often have leftovers of ground beef in the fridge. Usually when I cook ground beef, I do enough for some leftovers (we love our nachos!). I also usually cook it with dried minced onion added to the beef.

Spinach Breakfast Burrito

Some cooked ground beef
Dried minced onions (could be cooked in the beef, or added later)
Some fresh spinach, cut up in small strips
2 eggs (for one person, or two with small appetites)
A little cheese (or a lot) - I used mozzarella
2 corn tortillas

In a skillet on medium heat, warm the ground beef, onions, and spinach, until the beef is warm and the spinach is starting to cook. Add the eggs, scramble them and stir until cooked through. Turn off the burner and add the cheese (to melt), and place the tortillas in the microwave for about 20 seconds, or until hot. Scoop some of the egg mixture into the tortilla, roll, and enjoy. For an extra kick (and extra veggies), add some salsa to your burrito.

Fried Rice

I don’t know how fried rice is made in a restaurant - I don’t even eat the stuff. But as I was making dinner last night, I had a little pinch of inspiration. Maybe you’ll get one tonight.

I had 2 hamburger patties and 2 small chicken breasts in the freezer, so I defrosted them, and cooked them in a stainless steel skillet (first the hamburgers, then the chicken - in just a little olive oil). When I was done, there was all that lovely flavoring in the bottom of the skillet. I had opened the fridge at some point and noticed the last of that brown rice from a few days ago. Hmmm… So I put that bit of brown rice in the skillet, and added some of the mixed veggies from dinner (carrots, corn, peas, and green beans), and stirred it around until it got nice and hot and released some of those flavor bits off the bottom. I added some of the chicken. It was so good!

I think I will let inspiration pinch me more often.

Quick and Easy Hot Rice Cereal

Carter’s not feeling too well this morning, so I wanted to make him something yummy and fairly easy on his tummy.
I took some leftover brown rice, poured in a little milk, added a splash of vanilla and a clump of dark brown sugar, then microwaved it for a minute. Because he was in no mood to wait for the rice to soften, I put in some baby rice cereal to thicken it up (think rice pudding), and a little cold milk (to cool it back down for him). It was really good.
Carter didn’t want to try it, but once I got some on his lips, he started eating it with gusto.

Easy Bean and Ham Soup

Mom asked me to get her 2 packages of beans while I was at the store the other day, and then she asked me to soak the beans for her (since she was coming in the early morning to watch my kids yesterday). So I soaked 2 packages of beans. That’s a lot of beans. So she made some soup for me in my Crockpot.

Easy Bean and Ham Soup

1 package of dried Great Northern beans (about a pound), soaked overnight
Some ham (I had a package of ham steaks - about a pound; or leftover ham)
Some carrots (I had some matchstick carrots left in the fridge - easy route, no shredding)
oh, and some water - kinda important

Cook in the Crockpot on high for about 5 hours (give or take). You’ll want to taste it and see if it needs salt (depends on how salty your ham was). If you leave it on low for another couple of hours, you get mush (which some people like). We like to eat ours with some shredded mozzarella.

Turkey Quesadillas

Got leftovers? Need some ideas to use them up? Well, here’s one for you: Turkey Quesadillas. Quick, easy, yummy, and it uses up stuff taking up space in your fridge.
Mom brought us some turkey and ham leftovers (at Braden’s request). So we chopped up some turkey, stuck it on a corn tortilla with some cheese and another tortilla, and heated them up in a skillet. They were really good. We mostly had dark meat and used cheddar, but I had mozzarella with the only white meat in the container (this was my favorite). I’m not sure what happened, but there was only a tiny bit of salsa left in the whole house! That’s okay, these were excellent with the leftover cranberry-orange relish. I had entertained the idea of putting corn in with the meat and cheese, but was afraid of a pint-sized mutiny.

Steak Nachos

What do you do with leftover steak? Why, nachos, of course. I had been chopping my onions and celery for tomorrow’s stuffing (because I’ll get it in the crock pot in the morning), and decided to cut up last night’s steak leftovers. I let the meat sit in a bowl of apple juice for about an hour and a half - I think it made it a bit softer. Chips, meat, cheddar, some lettuce and salsa - yummy.
We have a tendency to let the leftovers sit in the fridge until they must be thrown out. Good thing I was paying attention when my brain was speaking today.