I love cooking, but some nights when I get home from work, I don’t want to spend lots of time in the kitchen. Or some days when it’s really hot, the thought of standing over the stove isn’t appealing. We love sandwich night at our house because it gets dinner on the table fast, and often, it doesn’t involve any cooking.
I love chicken salads, but many of them are made with fruit, and my husband doesn’t love sweetness in his savory dishes. So I created a very savory chicken salad that he loves. Mexican chicken salad is full of juicy corn, flavorful green chilis and crispy red onions. Get the recipe here.
Brittney Lee is a native Arkansan with a love for bright lights and big city. She often escapes her 20-acre home south of Fort Smith to shop, eat, and catch a concert in the big city. She blogs about her life, her family, her faith, her adventures, and her country home at RazorbackBritt.com.
If you live in The South you know “salad sandwiches” are a staple food. Whether it’s egg, chicken, or tuna salad sandwiches, it is an essential Southern dietary staple. It’s the perfect Spring & Summer food for picnics and always makes me nostalgic for those days with my family driving up the mountain to Wolf Pen.
A few weeks ago someone at work mentioned their famous chicken salad and I was thinking about how good that sounded. It’s about that time of the year! I occasionally eat chicken, but I was instantly inspired to try to “veganize” this. I asked her generally what she included and I think what I came up with was pretty darn inspiring. READ MORE
STEPHANIE BUCKLEY: HAM-STUFFED BISCUITS WITH APPLE BUTTER
We plan weddings around bye weekends, put on our Sunday best a day early; and set up makeshift living rooms under tents complete with our great-grandmother’s silver, floral arrangements and flat-screen TVs outside the stadiums. Welcome to tailgate season in the South.
Where I’m from, tailgating isn’t just a way to kill time before kickoff. It’s a daylong ritual, a family reunion, class reunion, fashion show, foodie’s dream event and cocktail hour all in one.
No party is complete without a spread of good food. Tailgating food can range from burgers and brats on the grill to things I typically found my grandmother serving to her guests, such as deviled eggs, chicken salad, cheese straws, beautiful pies and cakes (with icing the color of your team, of course). READ MORE
JULIE KOHL: RESTAURANT STEAK AT HOME
I used to believe it was only possible to have a good steak at a restaurant. Cooked to perfection with just a bit of pink in the middle; juicy, tender and flavorful. It seemed that every time I cooked steak at home it was dry, tough and lacked flavor.
I assumed it was because restaurants had access to better cuts of meat but it turns out that it was really because I was cooking the steaks completely wrong.
After a lot of trial and error at home, I finally landed on a recipe that closely mimics the quality of a restaurant-style steak. READ MORE
I have good-cooker genes in spades, but I haven’t brought them to a complete boil yet. You might say my skills are blanched, at best. Or maybe parboiled?
I like to cook when I have time or if I’m in the mood for a specific dish (which is almost always this Creamy Tomato Bowtie Pasta for me). I like to cook when I want to serve up a big helping of love to my husband and this when I want to make my picky tween-age daughter happy.
Even though I didn’t spend much time actually preparing food when I was a kid, I absorbed lots of cooking terminology while watching my mother, aunts and grandmothers flit about the kitchen, simultaneously sautéing while prepping homemade biscuits for the oven.
Because of those amazing home cooks, I innately know what it means to fold, dredge, julienne and caramelize.
I also learned it’s not a big deal to keep measurements completely precise, unless you’re baking, that is. And for Heaven’s sake, if you don’t like an ingredient in your chicken salad (recipe below!) or chicken pot pie – or whatever you’re making — just leave it out, replace it with something you like better or use more (or fewer) of the called-for ingredients. It’s all about customization in your kitchen.
I remember my best friend in middle school marveling at how I could cook up a tasty pot of macaroni and cheese without measuring out the six cups of water as instructed on the box. And how did I know to add a splash of olive oil to the pot so the water wouldn’t boil over?!
As with most of the cooks in my family, I just “eyeball it” when it comes to measuring.
My mother is the Queen of the Kitchen. She can pull together the most complicated meals at top speed. It ain’t no big thing for her to whip up some chicken and dumplings while making a from-scratch blackberry pie with the fruit her granddaughter just picked from the bushes up by the horse barn (that happened several times this summer).
Compared to my relatives, I’m not the Master of my Kitchen yet, but I’m becoming more advanced the older I get.
I prefer to cook a little more simply, though. Maybe it’s because I’m woefully inept at getting all the food on the table while everything’s still hot. I still don’t know how my mom does it.
One of my favorite (simplest, yet delicious) recipes right now is fall-inspired chicken salad.
I first made this fruited chicken salad recipe for a nautical-themed baby shower (link:http://nwamotherlode.com/archives/42840) at my house in Fayetteville back in May. Here’s a shot of the cute “crabs” I served:
This recipe has become a go-to for me. I found it on the All Recipes website, but adapted it, i.e. added extra ingredients I liked and took out the ones I didn’t. Like I said, super easy to make:.
1 cup mayonnaise (less if you like your chicken salad drier)
Salt (to taste)
Pepper (to taste)
Instructions
Mix diced, cooked chicken with mayonnaise.
Then add curry powder, onion powder, salt and pepper. Stir.
Next, add fruits and gently stir until well mixed.
You can serve immediately, but it always tastes better after it’s been in the fridge for an hour or two.
By Shannon Magsnam vis NWA Motherlode
Arkansas Women Bloggers https://arkansaswomenbloggers.com/
You can serve this chicken salad on croissants, fancy flatbread (or any bread, really), atop a salad (if you’re making a salad, consider cutting the pear into larger pieces and adding to the top for pretty) or just as an entrée on the plate by itself.
Here, I just made a quick salad and added a dollop of the chicken salad on top (I didn’t have green grapes, so I used red):
I hope you enjoy the crunch of this chicken salad and happy fall! Here’s to eating at tables brimming with your favorite foods, friends and family. Cheers!
Shannon Magsam is mama to one little lady(bug), is married to a long-time newspaperman, John, and co-founded nwaMotherlode, a resource website devoted to entertaining and connecting moms and families in Northwest Arkansas. nwaMotherlode offers advice, health information, book reviews, local mom interviews, recipes and much more.
Brittney Lee is a native Arkansan with a love for bright lights and big city. She often escapes her 20-acre home south of Fort Smith to shop, eat, and catch a concert in the big city. She blogs about her life, her family, her faith, her adventures, and her country home at RazorbackBritt.com. 
Shannon Magsam is mama to one little lady