mom’s chicken salad

I think I’ve mentioned it before that I’m not a big fan of the veggie. However, there’s a few salads I’ll eat. My mom’s chicken salad hapens to be one of them. Although I love the chicken salad on a sandwich, my mom usually cooks up some elbow pasta for an awesome macaroni chicken salad. I wanted to make lunch for this week and had some extra chicken laying around, so ta da…chicken salad!

Ingredients: (for a good week long supply)

• 3 boneless/skinless chicken breasts (i ended up using 1 part chicken thigh bc it’s what i had around)
• 3 tbsp. miracle whip
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise (the mayo and miracle whip can be replaced with the light or fat free stuff)
• 1/4 cup mini diced carrots
• 1 8oz can of pineapple chunks (drain the juice as much as possible)
• 2 tsp. sweet relish
• 2 tbsp. granulated sugar
• salt & pepper to taste

Let’s start off with boiling the chicken. I let it cook until it was not pink or red at all in the middle, continuously checking. While that cooks, go ahead and dice up your carrots and cut your pineapple chunks into thin slices. Add the carrots, pineapple, and sweet relish into a large mixing bowl.

Once the chicken is done boiling, remove from boiling water and let the chicken cool. Don’t go burning your fingers off trying to shred the chicken. I did this by hand, bc it brings back that childhood feeling of helping my mom in the kitchen with this. You could always chop it up with a knife, but what fun is that?

I had way more chicken than that, but if I added it all, I wouldn’t have the cute photo op (heh). Now, add the remaining ingredients…the mayo, miracle whip, & sugar. Mix it all up nice and great. Add salt & pepper to taste. I believe I used about 1.5 tsp of salt and about .5 tsp of pepper. If you feel you’d like more mayo or miracle whip, go ahead and add it. I won’t tell. *wink wink*

This is great on a sandwich, great alone, and fantastic with elbow pasta. Here’s to lunch for a week!

–chelle (i’m on a roll. 2 in a week. woo!)

And then there were ribs & guacamole

Once again, it’s Super Bowl Sunday. It’s the time of bbq, chips, dip and other finger foods. We made some guacamole and some honey bar b q ribs, among other things. We wanted to make things that were low maintenance so cooking wouldn’t be so stressful today. My sister and her boyfriend were the assistant chefs today. ^___^

Guacamole:

• 5 Haas avocados (halved, seeded, & peeled)
• 1 lime’s juice
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cayenne
• 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
• 1/2 onion diced
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 2 tomatoes diced
• 1 tbs. chopped cilantro

Procedure

• In a bowl, mash the avocadoes.
• Add the garlic, onions, tomatoes, cilantro, salt, cumin, lime juice, & cayenne.
• Mix together well and refrigerate.
• Remove from fridge and let sit an hour prior to serving.
• Can be served with your favorite tortilla chips or anything else really

Ingredients

• 1 rack of ribs
• 3-4 tbs. of dry rub (you can make your own, but i bought a specialty pork bbq dry rub from the store, and it was delicious)
• a jar of your favorite honey bbq sauce (i used the KC honey bar b q sauce)

Procedure

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees farenheit
• Generously season ribs with dry rub. Be sure to season both top and bottom sides
• Place ribs in a baking pan lined with aluminum foil. Cover top with aluminum foil as well
• Place in oven for a total of 2.5 hours
• After 1.5 hours, remove aluminum foil cover and lightly baste with the honey bbq sauce
• Every half hour afterwards, baste ribs with the honey bbq sauce

–Chelle

simply simple cheesecake

I picked this as my first baking task because it’s very simple to make. Make sure you add the exact amount of ingredients and mix everything thoroughly. All of my suitemates love it because it’s not too sweet like the ones you get from bakeries. (Trust me, they are super picky when it comes to cheesecakes.)

Ingredients

• 8oz Philadelphia cream cheese
• 1 1/2 tsp (about 1.3oz) butter
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 can condensed milk
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp lime juice (optional)
• 1 ready pie crust (9.5in)

Procedure

• Mix butter and cream cheese in bowl for about 5~10 minutes
• Add 2 tsp of sugar and mix
• Add 1/2 can of condensed milk and beat until smooth
• Add two eggs, one at a time, and mix thoroughly
• Add 1 tsp of vanilla (optional: and a little lime juice if you don’t want it to be too sweet) and mix
• Preheat oven to 350ºF
• Place the cake mixture into the ready pie crust
• Put the whole pie into the oven and bake it at 350ºF for 40 minutes
• Refrigerate the cake overnight or until it holds its shape

By Nats;  college student, cranky resident of NYC. She enjoys traveling, cooking, gaming, and surfing youtube at 3am in the morning. Also, she has a special interest on drop bear koalas <3.