Broccoli Slaw

My version of broccoli slaw with shredded chicken makes an easy lunch to munch on at work.

Chicken & Purple Potato Salad

Last night I made a big salad with chicken, purple potato and dill. To this I added some gobs of good mayo, extra strong dijon mustard, pepper and a generous dash of cumin. At 12:30 am this morning, I realized I couldn't fall asleep unless I polished off the rest of the bowl. So I did. In bed! And on the seventh day, I rested.

Chicken Asparagus Salad

Maybe it was because I was feeling a little under the weather today, maybe it was the rain finally reappearing after weeks of sun....but when I finally tossed everything together for this salad, I nearly fainted from the deliciousness. Using a roast chicken from Safeway cut back on a big chunk of time, so dinner was done in under half an hour. The salad can be served hot or cold, which makes it a good lunch for work the next day.

Asparagus and Almond Salad with Chicken from Breakfast Lunch Tea - The Many Little Meals of Rose Bakery

Serves 6
- 18 asparagus spears, trimmed
- 1 handful of whole almonds, skinned
- 6 skinless boneless chicken breasts
- extra virgin olive oil, for frying chicken
- salt and ground black pepper
- arugula, for garnish

For the dressing
- 2 shallots, finely diced
- 4 tbsps red wine vinegar
- 2 large handfuls chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
- salt and ground black pepper
- 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 350F degrees.

Place asparagus in simmering water and cook for about 5 minutes until the spears are just cooked. Drain and set aside to cool. Meanwhile, place almonds in a roasting pan with a little olive oil and roast for about 15 minutes--until they're golden. Set aside to cool. Fry or grill the chicken breasts until they are cooked through. Season with salt & pepper.

Cut the asparagus into 3 - 4 cm pieces. Slice the chicken breasts diagonally into four or five pieces (I just hand shredded them). I also decided to chop up the almonds as well. Make the dressing by combining the ingredients in a large bowl and mix well, adding oil at the end. Carefully fold in the chicken, asparagus and almonds into the dressing and garnish with arugula.

Super Sunday

Ok, I'm not into football at all, but Super Sunday gave me enough of an excuse to make chicken wings for breakfast. Yes, that's chicken wings. For breakfast. Donald's Market usually carries non-medicated and/or free range chicken and from time to time, even chicken wings. For less than 3 dollars, I picked up a pack of fairly sized half dozen wings--drummettes and tip attached. I discarded the tips and separated the chicken into drummettes and wings. To keep things somewhat "light", I opted not to do buffalo wings (because one has to draw a line somewhere when indulging in a bowlful of wings for breakfast). My standby breaded chicken wing recipe is a simple mix of breadcrumbs, panko, salt & pepper, paprika and chipotle seasoning. No egg mix for dredging, the chicken pieces have no trouble getting coated on their own. 395 degrees on a greased baking sheet for about 15-20 minutes makes perfectly browned and crispy wings. Burp.

Chicken on Rye

The half of the chicken from Pizza Night left over, I turned into a Yogurt & Dill Chicken Salad for sandwiches at work and for general snacking. I finally finished the last of the salad this morning, making myself a sandwich with some delicious extra dark rye bread. The chewy, grainy bread's deep flavor paired well with the dill in the salad; bonus for me since I'll take any opportunity to eat a slice of rye.

Pizza Night

I'm still in the midst of unpacking and unsorting my place after the last move, and my sister was nice enough to suffer through collaborating on a pizza dinner while a randomly giant futon frame sat right in the middle of my kitchen/living room/workspace, awaiting removal.

We had come up with the idea of making an Indian Butter Chicken Pizza and an Okonomiyaki Pizza some time ago during a random conversation. So we used the thin crust recipe from The Kitchn and experimented with toppings.

Butter Chicken Pizza

1 portion the thin crust dough, rolled out to 10" diameter
2 cups diced cooked chicken
1/2 cup sauteed onions
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup diced yellow and red bell peppers
1 large chopped roma tomato
1 cup President's Choice Indian Butter Chicken Sauce
2 tsps minced garlic

I highly recommend ditching the President's Choice brand sauce in favor of using Sharwood's Butter Chicken sauce, if you are to use a jar sauce to save time. Partially, the reason I only came up with the Butter Chicken Pizza idea was that I had this leftover sauce in my fridge that needed to be used up. The PC brand just doesn't do it--it smells terrific out of the jar, but somehow tastes completely watered down. I would also veto Patak's brand butter chicken sauce if you're looking for something closer to an authentic South Asian flavor.




Okonomiyaki Pizza

2 cups shredded, sauteed cabbage
1 cup chopped baby cuttlefish
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
1/4 cup diced red peppers
1 cup Okonomiyaki sauce

For garnish:
1/2 cup shredded dried nori
2 tsps dried bonito flakes
2 tsps chopped green onion
a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds
a generous drizzle of Kewpie mayonnaise




Didn't have any okonomiyaki sauce on hand, so we raided my fridge and mixed tonkatsu sauce, Worchestershire sauce and ketchup to make a reasonably tasty approximation of it. I'm sure numerous variations of okonomiyaki pizza can be made--minced pork, scrambled egg, soba noodles, mashed potato, octopus, shrimp, dried anchovies can all be added or substituted. The hard part is fitting everything in--our okonomiyaki pizza was more of a mountain, as we observed the cuttlefish and mushrooms slowly cascade downwards in the oven! Oh yeah, and it tasted really really good.