BBQ Chicken Salad with Creamy BBQ Cilantro Lime Dressing

Here is another great tasting salad I found on the web, this time from Mel's Kitchen Cafe. Be sure to go there and check out her site because she has some really good stuff on there.

NOTE from Mel: this recipe calls for already cooked chicken so plan ahead! I like to cook my chicken in the crockpot, using frozen chicken breasts and about 1 cup of chicken broth for every 2 chicken breasts. I cook on low for about 4-5 hours and then shred and refrigerate (or freeze) for later.

NOTE from me: I HATE cold chicken so I suggest if you feel the same way just make your chicken a little beforehand and have it ready. I also suggest the use of FRESH corn, fresh vegetables in general are better tasting.

Have you ever see anyone on Top Chef use canned veggie's? No you have not, pre-made puff pastry, yes and we all know how that went.

Anyway, I also roasted the corn and heated the back beans as well. Again, not a step you have to take but life is all about options. Last thing, the cheese, I'm not sure you need it on there, I initially forgot to add it and then went back and did so but I can't say that it added anything special. However, I did add tortilla strips for a little color and added crunch.

Serves: 4-6

INGREDIENTS:
Chicken and Salad:
3 cups cooked, shredded chicken
2 cups BBQ sauce, storebought or homemade
½ head iceberg lettuce, cored and chopped
2 romaine hearts, chopped
1/2 red onion diced
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 1/2 cups frozen corn, thawed
1 can (15 ounces) black beans, rinsed and drained
4 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, cubed small or shredded
4 ounces Monterey jack cheese, cubed small or shredded

(optional) Tortilla strips

Creamy BBQ Cilantro Lime Dressing:
1 cup mayonnaise, light or regular
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, finely chopped
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 garlic clove, finely minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 to 1/2 cup BBQ sauce

DIRECTIONS:
For the salad, combine the cooked chicken and BBQ sauce in a medium bowl. Refrigerate until ready to use.

OR Grill chicken and let cool until you are able to shred it then toss in BBQ sauce. Heat black beans and allow to simmer until you are ready to use them. Strain and add to salad. At the same time you can roast the corn and again add to salad when ready.

In a large bowl, toss together the iceberg lettuce, romaine lettuce, red onion, cilantro, corn, black beans and cheese. Toss the mixed salad with about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the dressing, if desired. Otherwise, you can serve the dressing on the side. Place salad on plates and top with the prepared BBQ chicken and additional dressing.

For the dressing, combine all the ingredients together and whisk (or shake, if using a jar) vigorously to combine. You could also run this through a blender to make it even more smooth. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Wilted Spinach & Mushroom Salad

Here is an easy recipe for a delicious wilted spinach and mushroom salad that I borrowed from Sam the Cooking guy. His printed recipe doesn't include the use of 2 different bell peppers, the crustini like bottom or the egg topping but I've found that these elements really add that extra something to the salad.

I don't have a picture to go with this one just yet but I'll be sure to add one the next time I make this.... enjoy!

Ingredients:
1 bag pre-washed spinach leaves
1 red or yellow bell pepper, (or both) thinly sliced
8 slices ready crisp bacon
1 pound mushrooms, sliced
3/4 cup bottled balsamic vinegar dressing
1/2 cup sliced green onions
1-2 hard boiled eggs
Slices of French bread (toasted)
Olive oil

How to make the magic happen:
Start by boiling the eggs, everything else happens pretty quickly so give yourself enough time to allow the eggs to fully boil and cool down

In a large salad bowl, place spinach, bell pepper and green onions

Heat oil in large pan and saute mushrooms until softened, about 5 minutes

Add bacon and cook for another couple of minutes
I like to pre-cut it for a shorter cooking time and it's ready to go once it's done

Turn up heat and add dressing - allow to heat through

After slicing it diagonally, toast your French bread on both sides

Remove from heat and pour over spinach and peppers

Mix well and season to taste with salt & pepper

Serve salad on top of the French bread and top with the boiled egg which you have either sliced or grated

Out of sight out of mind

Well if you can believe it some people have been asking me "No seriously, where is Monkey?" which to be honest was a good question. I hadn't seen that guy in days and then I remembered that we took a trip to Borders the other day to get a giftcard for Fathers Day. So I checked my bag and wouldn't you know it BOOYA MONKEY! Talk about commitment... this guy was still trying to prove that he was the better choice for a road trip buddy over Dott! Amazing! I told him he was hands down the the best sock monkey I had ever seen and one heck of a good hider.

Later that evening as I wrote out my Fathers Day card Monkey asked me if I knew where he came from. Which caught me off guard, I mean how old is Monkey anyway? And didn't Granny talk to him about this stuff already? Sheeze! I did the best I could and told him what I remembered from Health class back in Jr. High, which was that most Monkeys like him start out like this, probably in Rockford, Il. and then with a little help and a lot of love they mature into full sock monkeys. Monkey said he appreciated my honesty and that's when he told me I could call him Nelson.

While cleaning up today I ran into a serious dilemma... if Im working in the bedroom how do I listen to new music when the iMac is across the hall? I tried setting up iTunes home sharing but it seems all that does it allow you to share purchases on multiple computers, not very helpful when you want to listen to music you imported yourself. I was very tempted to just move the iMac into the bedroom and set it up on the dresser or even on a shelf. Then as I sweeping the dust bunnies into the hall Nelson was complaining about the set up in the living room letting me know the sofa was too close to the TV with all the stuff that had ended up being stored behind it. Bingo! Take one 42" plasma in need of storage and one Apple TV out of storage and there you have it media player overkill...

Have you seen my Monkey?

Where the rubber hits the road

More nonsense here on the home front, the city is working on our street again and so I have to park a block over in anticipation of their improvements... as you can see from the photo they are working around the clock to finish sealing the road and return our lives to normal.


I have pushed my tires about as far as they would go and last night during a quick inspection I noticed a large gash in the front drivers side tire. So this morning it was off to America's Tire where I got a great deal on a full set of 4 tires for the price of 2 of my normal run flat tires. Sure they're not run flats but they will last almost 40,000 more miles so it seemed like a good deal.


Monkey insisted on coming with me, even though I had an early appointment and it looks like he stayed up all night after I told him we had HBO. I guess he's a fan of True Blood, personally I thought the show jumped the shark last season but these days it seems people just cant get enough of vampires.

After finding out that Dott got to go on the road trip so she could help the girls play "Spot the Dott" once at the tire shop Monkey let me in on his plan to show Team SAM what they were missing out on. I don't know why I go along with his shenanigans but it if helps with his self esteem it cant be all bad right?

Ok its time to play... Have You Seen My Monkey?

How does your garden grow?

Checked out the garden today and removed every other carrot. With luck this will allow the remaining carrots to reach full size. I also noticed that we're experiencing a bean frenzy... all of our bean plants have produced a cornucopia of legumes. Wait beans are legumes right? Anyway there is other activity in the garden which at the moment is beyond my experience level so I will probably call in the neighborhood herbivore to check out whats going on and see what his advice is for their care and continued growth.
While out running errands I stopped at Target for a fathers day card or two and ended up with none. Looks like this year I'll have to break out my crayons and my pencils. Ive decided that there there really is a need for my "cards for dudes written by other dudes" line. There are a ton of cards out there of dads that are either overly juvenile or overly sentimental. There really needs to be a greeting card line that would say something like "Happy Fathers Day" From your son... and that's it, everything else is implied. Maybe in the future the card could incorporate a video head nod, so that there wouldn't be a need for words at all. It's just a thought.

Monkey continues to sulk around the house... I think his feelings were hurt when he found out that he was left behind due to his size. I told him to try and not take it personally and that maybe Team SAM just didn't realize his true potential. I asked him if maybe he wasn't so confident that he was going on the trip that perhaps he failed to demonstrate his ability to squeeze into a bag or under the dashboard for easy storage to the girls during their practice load out. That seemed to get through to him but he was still a little down so to cheer him up, I suggested that we go get hair cuts because I know I always feel better after one. Paul was his usual self and we mostly talked about the UFC which is pretty much what we always talk about. I just got the usual and Monkey, this being his first trip to the barber shop just got a trim.

Day 1

Well it shouldn't come as much of a surprise but Sock Monkey lost it after he was suddenly cut from Team SAM (Sew Across America). I got back from Bear Flag Day and the house was destroyed and I cant even tell you what Monkey had to say about Dott the red plushy thing who was chosen as his replacement. ROUGH...
We had a talk though and I explained to him that we couldn't spend the next month with him moping around the house so we came up with a plan, Monkey was going to have to burn off that anger at the gym. Monkey (We're not on a first name basis yet) started off the session with some light bag work and then things got out of hand... he and forgive the pun, went ape shit and just started climbing everything an jumping on all of the equipment. After a while he burnt out and went to take a nap in the corner. The rest of us worked on kicks and chaining kick combos together followed by a great session of pistol disarm techniques.

Later in the day after a quick trip to the grocery store I went out and cleaned up in the garden and watered down both the front and back. I plan to thin the carrots later this week in hopes that its possible to grow a full sized man carrot instead of the mini ones we're currently getting. The tomatoes look good and I'm going to harvest some snow peas for Pad Thai later in the week. Delish!

I closed out the evening with an archery class over at Archery Only. The regular crew was there and I mainly worked on my form. Apparently the correct bow pull ends with ones index finger in the corner of their mouth, essentially fish hooking ones self. I had been ending mine resting my cheek in the "V" created by my thumb and index finger. OOPS!?! It's all good I have all Summer to practice.

Well that's bout it, not bad for a 1st day of a non summer vacation right?