Blake Makes

During the busy work week, I want meals that are delicious but incredibly easy to make. There’s nothing worse than having a long, stressful day and knowing you have to come home and start cooking (and then the dreaded clean-up afterward).

This salad is so simple and is a good way to use up any barbecued or grilled chicken you might have leftover from the weekend. I usually just buy a barbeque rotisserie chicken to make this meal even easier. You can also vary the salad ingredients to use up any veggie leftovers you might have on hand because what makes this salad great is the poblano dressing– it’s creamy and smooth with just enough spice.

Recipe courtesy of Susan Spicer’s Crescent City Cooking.

Ingredients (Salad):

• 1 1/2 to 2 cups diced bbq chicken meat, from leftovers or a store-bought roasted chicken
• 1 ripe avocado, diced
• 1/2 cup frozen corn kernels,, thawed, or 2 ears corn, grilled in the husk then shucked and cut from the cob
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced celery or celery hearts
• 3 scallions, thinly sliced
• 1 head Bibb lettuce, broken into leaves, washed and dried
• Creamy Poblano Dressing

Directions (Salad):

Toss all ingredients except dressing in a salad bowl, then toss in the dressing or serve it on the side.

Ingredients (Dressing):

• 1 poblano, roasted and peeled
• 2 T fresh lime juice
• 2 T chopped scallion greens
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 cup Mayonnaise (I used light mayo)
• 2 T sour cream or buttermilk (I used light sour cream)

Directions (Dressing):

Place all the ingredients in a blender and puree until smooth. Adjust seasonings as necessary.

Bridget’s away on a business trip, so dinner is just me and the poodle tonight. I’m really craving eggs today, but I don’t want breakfast for dinner. I love poached eggs…wheels turning…I have some great homemade vinegarette in the fridge…wheels turning…why not put a poached egg on a salad? The EBLT is born.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

So, obviously, EBLT stands for Eggs-Bacon-Lettuce-Tomato. I toss some mixed greens in a simple, homemade vinegarette.

The make the vinegarette, whisk together the following:

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 tablespoon raspberry vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon grainy mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon honey
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  
• 1 tablespoon minced shallot

Toss the greens in the dressing. Dice a tomato, toss it in. Scissor in some crisp turkey bacon, toss it in. Crumble in some feta.

Poach 2 eggs and place them (carefully) on top of the salad. Crack a little black pepper on the stark white spheres.

I cook my eggs just long enough to keep them together, but to leave the insides warm and runny.

I break into the eggs one at a time. The first egg gets invaded when I start my meal, and warm, yellowy mirth pours into the salad and becomes part of the dressing.

I puncture the second egg about half way through the salad.

Blake Makers, this is such a great way to eat healthy, eat high, eat happy. bk

P.S. I know there are a lot of photos, but I loved them all.

I’ve made a version of these quesadillas before, but these are a little different. I’m always amazed how sweet onions get if you cook them long (and slow) enough. These were like candy, and I didn’t add sugar or balsamic vinegar.

To Make The Onions:

Peel and slice 2 yellow onions and 1 red onion (I cut the yellow onions in half).

Melt 2 tblsp. of butter with 2 tblsp. of olive oil over low heat in a large skillet. Add the onions.

Leave them to cook (you should hear a slight, quiet sizzle).

Stir them in 15 minute increments until 1 hour has elapsed. They should be brown and sweet.

Taste to see if you need any salt, and I toss in about a tsp. of fresh thyme leaves.

To Make The Quesadillas:

Place a quesadilla on a plate. Top with 1/4 of the onion mixture. Dollop on fresh goat cheese. Top with another tortilla.

Cook in a skillet over medium-high heat until golden and filling is gooey.

We used whole wheat tortillas and went light on the cheese to make this dish healthier for us. They were so good…even better cold the next day.

Bridget made this salad last weekend. It’s just got a few ingredients, and requires no cooking (assembly only). I got guilt-free seconds. Behold, tomato-onion salad.

There are no exact measurements with this salad. Dice as many tomatoes as you need to feed everyone eating.

Thinly slice a white onion. White onions have a little heat, so make sure not to put too much in. We just used 1 medium white onion for the two of us, and remember, slice it as thin as you can.

Next, chop some black olives (about a cup) and fresh parsley (about 1/4 cup).

Drizzle over a little olive oil, and season with salt and pepper.

We sprinkled on some crumbly goat cheese at the end (to taste), and ate it with slices of toasted Kalamata olive bread.

This is sort of like a deconstructed Panzanella. It’s very good and keeps in the fridge for plenty of late night snacking.

Hello, Blake Makers. Do you watch TV as much as I do? If you do, you may have seen the Kashi commercials about their snack drive to rid the world of a million bad snacks. If you go to their site, you’ll see that the snack drive is now over (you were too late!) which means that a million people got a taste of Kashi who may have otherwise passed them by in the grocery. When I asked for a snack, they were out of my first choice (cookies), and so I went for the 7 Grain crackers. They arrived today.

They were yummy! Bridget and I have developed a taste for healthy, whole grains, but I think even people who haven’t will enjoy these crackers.

They have a slight sweetness which makes them feel a bit more indulgent, and as you chew them you can almost feel the seven grains in your mouth.

The package tells me the crackers contain zero grams of trans fat (good), no hydrogenated oils (hooray) and 7 whole grains (fine).

I’m a sucker for good branding, and Kashi had me months ago with their feel-good commercials and beautiful logo. However, I never bought any of their products. Now, I will.

These chicken nuggets are so good, and (again) take me back to my childhood. They’re surprisingly healthy, too. The batter is made from pulverized corn flakes, and they’re baked in a hot oven until crisp. We ate them with crispy, baked sweet potato matchsticks. This is an Ellie Krieger recipe.

Ingredients:

• Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• Low-fat buttermilk
• S&P
• 4 cups crushed corn flakes

To Make:

I used one-and-a-half pounds of chicken, but this recipe is flexible, so use as much as you want. Slice the chicken crosswise into nugget-sized chunks. Put the chicken in a bowl, and drown it in buttermilk (I added a little hot sauce, too).

Soak the chicken for at least 15 minutes (I let it go for an hour) in the fridge. Crush the corn flakes in a bag, or blitz them in the food processor, and pour them into a shallow dish. Drain the buttermilk and salt and pepper the chicken pieces.

Coat the chicken with the cereal, then place it on a greased sheet pan. Back for about 10 minutes at 400. Test the thicker pieces for doneness. Let them cool. The nuggets will crisp upon standing.

We dipped our in honey. I figured we could spare the extra calories since we didn’t fry these beauties.

To Make The Sweet Potato Matchsticks:

Make broad slices of a sweet potato, then slice those broad slices into thin matchsticks. Toss with a little oil, and salt and pepper. Bake in a single layer on a sheet pan at 450 for 30 minutes. Sprinkle with a little more salt when they’re done.