I’m one of those kinds of folks who thinks everything I do is fun and I never understand why other people can’t have fun doing the things I love doing but .. don’t ask me to do the things you love doing because I might not like doing those things! 🙂
When people tell me they can’t cook, I just don’t understand that. I used to say I couldn’t keep a clean house and I know that I CAN . . I just choose not to do so. I guess it’s the same way with cooking. Everyone can follow a recipe but if it’s just not something you enjoy doing, then you choose not to do it but you COULD do it if you wanted to do it, right?
I’ve always been a “give me a recipe and I can fix it” kind of cook. Chad, on the other hand, is a cook who opens the cabinet, pulls out a bunch of stuff and makes something. In his early cooking days, most of the time before I ever saw what he was cooking, I said “Oh, sorry . . I’m not hungry . . I had a late lunch!” or something because he just put the weirdest things together. His go to ingredient is curry powder. It doesn’t matter . . scrambled eggs, baked potatoes, meatloaf . . if Chad is making it, chances are it will have curry powder. He’s now an excellent cook and I love eating what he fixes.
One of my goals in the kitchen is to be able to make things without having a recipe.
Yesterday I needed to go to the grocery store and leaving home is such a chore for me. I put it off early in the morning til it was too late to go and get home in time for lunch. Then I did the same thing yesterday afternoon .. put it off and then it was too late to go and get back in time for Vince to get home from work. So, when it was time for dinner, I had a problem. I had just a tad of lettuce and spinach . . not enough to make a big salad so I had to get creative and this is what I came up with.
Salad
It has just a little lettuce but it has tomatoes, avocados, bacon and deviled eggs. It didn’t even look like I had to scrape things together to come up with a salad for dinner.
Dinner
Dinner was leftover herb roasted pork tenderloin and turnip greens.
Today for lunch, I made chicken salad.
Chicken Salad
Normally my chicken salad has sweet pickle relish but I didn’t want to add the sugar so while looking for dill relish in the fridge, I saw the jar of minced jalapeno peppers. I added that to the chicken salad and it was delicious — even better than when I use sweet pickle relish. I use a can of chicken . . don’t knock it . . I love it, along with unsweetened dried cranberries, toasted walnuts, celery, onion, mayo and the jalapeno peppers.
Lunch
Avocados stuffed with chicken salad, cherry tomatoes and celery, along with a little bowl of blueberries and blackberries. Kroger has blackberries on sale for .99. I’m never sure if they’re going to be sweet or on the sour side but these are so darned sweet . . I could eat a whole bucket of them . . but I won’t! Maybe. I only bought two containers so unless I go back to the grocery store, I can only eat two containers . . but I won’t. Maybe! 🙂
Patti Tappel says
Judy, I don’t know if potatoes are on your diet, but if they are you should try this recipe. I did last night minus the eggs. We loved it! http://blog.williams-sonoma.com/brussels-sprouts-potato-hash-with-fried-eggs/
Carol says
Salad looks wonderful and could never tell it was not planned. Where do you find UNSWEETENED dried cranberries? All I ever see has sugar listed as an ingredient.
Barbara says
I enjoy your posts about food and this way of eating. I hope it will influence a lot of your readers to at least try it. So many health problems can be helped by a change in diet.
I applaud you for saying out loud what a lot of us are thinking (I’m also a food snob–sometimes it is hard to sit and watch friends consume junk and then take medicine to try to correct the harm the junk is doing–that has just never made sense to me).
Vicky says
I was going to ask you how you make your chicken salad, but I read further and you answered my question. I just discovered chicken salad over Christmas, and now I look for it everywhere. Thanks!
Amy says
My best tuna & chicken salad sandwiches always have my home canned jalapeno jelly 🙂 I know it’s canned with a lot of sugar but when I need to buy candied jalapenos for cooking (like when a jar bursts in the canner) I grab the Mt Olive. I bet it was awesome, craving some now myself 🙂
Becky Ball says
We now have a brand of sweet pickles (Vlasic) that is made with sucralose – no calories. They taste as delicious as my mother’s homemade. I grind them up for sugar-free pickle relish. We have a store brand of sugar-free pickle relish . . . but I’ll continue to use the others and grind them. I use extra of the “juice” in my deviled eggs to cut down on the Mayo / Miracle Whip needed to make it moist. Works well for me.
Rebecca in SoCal says
That must have been a flavor explosion, with jalapeños and UNsweetened cranberries! I didn’t know you could get those.
That looks a lot like a salad my husband gets at a restaurant where I like the veggie sandwiches. I ought to use avocados more, being right down the road from the “capital” of them!
Dawn in East Texas says
I had a chuckle over the first part of this post, because I am the same way – totally fascinated with the things I am learning/doing in my life … and most of the folks I know are not as fascinated…Recently I was so pumped up about buying milk for 2.00 per gallon and making my own yogurt and farmers cheese with it I just had to share, but got a lot of “glazed over” looks while talking about it. At the same time, I am completely incapable of participating in discussions about so many things….movies, TV shows, parties….. That is why I read blogs … I feel I am not so alone in my lifestyle and interests.
Kris S says
Mt. Olive makes a sugar free relish that is sweetened with Splenda.
CindyM says
I rare follow recipes or quilt patterns! But I do spend hundreds of dollars on quilt books and cookbooks. But it’s mostly for ideas, not for the actual pattern or recipe. Nothing wrong with canned meats. I use canned chicken, tuna and salmon fairly often. I love all 3 fresh, but there’s a place for canned products, too. I’ve rarely used sweet relish – almost always dill relish (which sometimes is harder to find). surprising since I have such a strong German heritage! I love putting lots of flavorful things in chicken/tuna/egg/ham salad–olives, different pickled things, capers, fruit. Keeps it interesting!
Deb says
Man, I hate to tell you, but you and my husband are twins! He loves everything he does too, and the whole cooking thing…and so many others…freaky. Can’t image what you two would be like together…he needs a hobby. Maybe I can get him to start knitting….!