Recipe For Chicken Salad with Capers

Chicken Salad with Capers on Rye Bread

When my husband and I were first married I struggled with leftovers. We would forget to eat them or I just re-heated everything in the microwave. I never really thought past the actual food as it was. Then after having kids I realized that I needed to start using leftovers in a more efficient way. With two boys if I serve the exact same dish two days in a row they groan or refuse to eat it. However, if I reinvent it into a new dish they embrace it wholeheartedly. So I have learned to make multiple meals from one recipe. Today I made chicken salad with capers from the leftovers of the Roasted Chicken with Parsley Caper Pesto from last week.

I made two versions of the chicken salad. For the first sandwich pictured above I made rye bread sandwiches. Here are the ingredients I used:

• 3 cups leftover chicken
• 2 tablespoons capers
• 2 dill half spears, chopped
• a small pinch of cayenne pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• a pinch of paprika
• enough mayo to make desired consistency
• 1/2 of a small gala apple, chopped
• small squirt of dijon mustard

Chicken Salad with Capers on Gluten Free Bread

For the gluten free sandwich shown above I followed the same recipe with the addition of dill seeds. The dill seeds really did help to bring out the flavor of the salad.

My husband and oldest son enjoyed their sandwiches with arugula. I had mine with just the chicken salad. Overall this was a great way to use a recipe to make two separate meals.

Here is the link to the post for the Roasted Chicken. 

Chicken Shawarma

My two kids and I love sandwiches. I make homemade bread weekly and every week my kids and I fight over sandwich ingredients. We all have a major peanut butter craving and I am not afraid to say that peanut butter is probably one of my favorite foods. I have tried giving it up over the years, but I always go back. My peanut butter obsession seems to go back to when I was little and we had very little money. We had to stand in the line at the church food line and the best part of the experience was the peanut butter. It came in huge jars and I loved it. I would literally eat it out of the jar with a spoon, sometimes actually squirting honey into the jar to combine and eat. Now that I'm older, while I still love peanut butter I have forced myself to branch out and try new sandwich combinations. One of my favorite sandwich fillings is grilled chicken, so I was very excited when I saw a recipe for Chicken Shawarma in the March/April issue of Eating Well magazine.

This recipe has 13 ingredients. It takes a total of 45 minutes, all of which is active and makes 4 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients and made no ingredient modifications. I chose to use whole wheat pita bread, I try to use whole wheat whenever possible. I found a beautiful tomato at the farmer's market which worked perfectly for this recipe. Since I used an indoor grill my total grilling time was closer to 4 minutes per side. I weighed out my chicken breast to ensure proper amounts, I encourage anyone that doesn't have a food scale to buy one. They really are worth the money and can make a huge difference in recipes! Normally I would have used fresh lemon juice, but I completely forgot to buy lemons, so I used bottled instead. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

My three-year-old loved these sandwiches. I wasn't sure if he would eat the sauce or turn up his nose, but he ate his whole serving. At first I thought that the chicken was too salty, but once the sauce was added to the sandwich the taste was perfect. The recipe states that it makes four servings, but my family eats a lot of meat so this dish made more like 3 servings. I would suggest doubling the recipe if you have a meat eating family like I do or if you want leftovers. Overall, a popular new sandwich recipe in my house.

For the recipe go to Chicken Shawarma.

All You Slow-Cooker Barbecue Chicken

Weeknight meals in my house can turn into chaos relatively easily. Either my two-year-old has a melt down or my five-year-old destroys half the living room, making dinner run an hour late. Even when dinner is running on time, in the summer my kitchen turns into a sauna, making cooking less than pleasant in the 90 degree heat. I love finding slow-cooker recipes, that are quick and easy for hot, chaotic weeknight meals. Recently, All You magazine had a recipe for slow-cooker barbecue chicken that looked easy and delicious.

With only eight ingredients this recipe is extremely easy to prep in the slow-cooker.  With no vegetables to prepare, this recipe takes less than five minutes to get together and start. The remainder of the six hours is done completely in the slow-cooker. I followed this recipe as states, with one modification. I topped my pulled chicken with the Napa cabbage slaw from a previous fish taco recipe found here.

This recipe turned out well. The addition of the slaw was excellent and made for a nice texture. For a chicken breast recipe the meat turned out very tender and delicious, similar to pulled pork. I like that few ingredients are used and there is basically no prep, which is perfect during a busy weeknight dinner.

For the link go to All You Slow-Cooker Barbecue Chicken.

Reuben Sandwich Leftovers: Everything But the Corned Beef

What do you do with the leftovers from a Reuben sandwich, when you run out of corned beef? The solution in my kitchen is a take on the Rachel sandwich. Since there was no coleslaw to be had in our house I used sauerkraut, Jewish rye, Swiss cheese, Turkey deli-cuts and the Russian dressing from yesterday. After it was put together I grilled it on my waffle/griddle until it was nicely browned. I actually preferred this sandwich to the reuben, but everyone else in the house is still in love with yesterday's sandwich. This sandwich was a great way to use leftovers and tasted delicious!

Irish Soda Bread, Corned Beef and Reubens

Right after St. Patrick's Day all the corned beef was on clearance, so I picked up a 5 pound brisket. It sat in my fridge until yesterday when it was 85 degrees and a perfect day for the crock-pot. I made Irish soda bread from a great recipe that I found online years ago that uses two cake pans to make a perfect crunchy crust, best Irish Soda Bread Recipe.

Everyone in the known world, but me uses water and potatoes in their crock-pot when doing corned beef, but I'm not one of them. I just throw the in the corned beef and cabbage and let it go for about 8-10 hours on low. Works great!

After the corned beef was done in the crock-pot I took it out and sliced it, and then decided that reubens would be a better option for my kids. To make the reubens  I used Jewish rye, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and Russian dressing, 1/2 cup of mayo, 2 Tablespoons chili sauce (Chili Sauce). They turned out great, even my husband the Reuben snob asked for seconds.

All in all a great crock-pot option for an 85 degree day!