Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Smoked Chicken Salad

We had our story telling party a little over a week ago. The kids are ready to move on to an open house for Christmas but my husband still enjoys the story sharing. It is always a lot of fun.

I made 3 different appetizers, 3 types of cookies, 3 different dips, fudge, white chocolate party mix, and there were the fruit, veggie & cheese/cracker trays. We ended up having just under 50 people come. The smoked Chicken Salad and the lemon-spice swirl cookies were new recipes that I tried and they were a hit.

Smoked Chicken Salad

1 (3.5-4 lb.) rotisserie chicken
2 (15 oz.) cans black eyed peas, rinsed and drained
1 pint grape tomatoes, quartered
3/4C chopped chives
1/2C mayonnaise
1/2C sour cream
1/2t salt
1/2t pepper
1/2t liquid smoke
1 (7 oz.) pkg. miniature pita bread, cut in half
2C spring salad mix

Pull meat off of rotisserie chicken and put in work bowl of food processor. Pulse until meat is coarsely chopped, about 10 sec. In a large bowl, combine chicken, peas, tomatoes, and chives. Add mayonnaise, sour cream, salt, pepper and liquid smoke, stirring until well-combined. Line each pita half with a few leaves of salad mix and stuff with chicken salad. Yield: 40 pita halves.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Ground Beef

Ok, so life got crazy and I have not been an active poster and actually there are no guarantees about the coming future but I shared a tip last night with someone at the activity formerly known as Enrichment and thought it would be a good tip to share....

When browning ground beef put some water in the pan with it. (Do you already do this?) I read about this a couple of years ago and I LOVE the results. It creates a much softer meat than just browning it normally. So easy and can be poured off when you dump the grease. You can add up to a cup for a pound and remember you will dump it off, it changes the texture and makes it light and lovely. If you have not tried this, I would highly suggest it! Let me know what you think!

Trisha