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Salads and Salad Dressings

Bacon Ranch Chicken Salad

July 31, 2014 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

You've got to work with me here.

This is not some kind of green thing with healthy grilled chicken and a little bacon and ranch.

Nope. NOPE. This is creamy, decadent, SEXY chicken salad that happens to taste like homemade ranch dressing with bacon pieces mixed in.

Oh sh*t yeah, we did it.

This was actually Jay's idea - sometimes he does this thing where he says words and then I make them into food. It works great, and this is a serious winner. The ranch dressing is super similar to the spread I made for the monster sub I shared a few months ago, and would be delicious just as a dip for veggies. Homemade ranch is great! The packet is delicious too, though, so don't feel bad if you're a packet ranch person. I feel you. This salad is great over greens, or with crackers, or on a sandwich, or just straight out of the bowl with a spoon. It's GOOD.

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BBQ Chicken Chopped Pasta Salad

July 28, 2014 by Lindsay 3 Comments

This is like weekend food with Monday health factor to make up for the OTHER weekend food you ate and are now sweating out in hot yoga.

No? Just me?

Let's not worry about that, though, let's worry about homemade BBQ Sauce and sexy chicken and healthy pasta with tons of veg. Let's worry about THAT.

Jay LOVES barbecue sauce. Mainly the brown stuff with tons of sugar out of a bottle, but now likes spicy stuff and weird flavors like curry in his BBQ sauce. But he really likes it, in a really comical way: all of his friends just kind of know this about him. It's like "oh, there's Hastings with a regular sandwich, I KNOW what condiment is dripping out of it.

So strange. It took me a while to remember this about him, because it's just so specific, and maybe also because I really don't like BBQ sauce that much? I mean, it's OK, and I like vinegary varieties, but the brown sugary stuff just ISN'T my jam at all, so I assume no one else likes it either. Clearly.

Here we have a really light and flavorful pasta salad with hardly any dressing and some SEXY barbecue sauce with spice and flavor that takes 5 minutes to make. It's perfect for meal prep too - the pasta salad and barbecue chicken keep wonderfully in the fridge for lunches all week. Take THAT, Monday!

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Quinoa Caprese w/ Blueberries

July 2, 2014 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

I know I know I know, you get it. Red white and blue. LET ME HAVE THIS LITTLE BIT OF JOY.

But I know that secretly we're all happy it's almost effing Friday so we can get back to all the colors in our food.

Sorry.

This, though. It's amazing! Really really yummy! I had a caprese salad at a fancy restaurant on Saturday night (Frank's, if you're interested), and DAYUM was it good! I'm usually not one to order things that I know are going to be overpriced and that I can so easily make at home, but for some reason it really struck us and we ordered it to share and were NOT disappointed. I think my thing with caprese is this: I don't really like balsamic vinegar that much. I know, kill me, it's delicious, how could you NOT like that, blah blah blah. I just....find it too strong a lot of the time. BUT, if reduced a little bit and sweetened and used sparingly, I really like it, and the flavor combo of tomatoes and balsamic and mozz and basil is really a totally legit thing. Hence, I loved the salad due to not too much balsamic, and now have added the flavors to some red quinoa and blueberries because FLAG COLORS, and so there you go.

Let's make it! You can make it even if you aren't trying to match a country.

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Asian Chicken Salad

July 1, 2014 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Nope, not like the kind at Panera with random crunchy things on top and weird thick sweet dressing drizzled over dry chicken.

Not like that. Like southern chicken salad but with Asian flavors including but not limited to Sriracha and soy and sesame, and YOU WILL LOVE THIS. Regular chicken salad is all well and good, but THIS is the summer appetizer that will get you invited back to fun places.

I made this last week for Jay's lunch and then took leftovers to the beach to share, and that ish was GONE. I didn't get a single bite, which is a testament to how great it is. It's easy, too!

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Squash Ceviche w/ Blueberries and Jalapeno {raw + vegan}

May 27, 2014 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Welcome back from your holiday! I think we can all agree that raw + vegan isn't my usual MO when it comes to cooking, but I was looking for something super light and fresh after a weekend of....you know....not light and fresh, and also I was creating a recipe for a raw contest and THIS happened and it is actually delicious, even without fat, cooking or animal products.

Seriously.

You know how lime juice can cook stuff and that's why it's used with raw fish to cook it juuuuuust a little bit in regular ceviche? It's delicious, and this is a pure-veg version of that. The flavors of the varying veg and fruit and really delicious, AND since there ain't no cooking this is done FAST. Like, 10 minutes to make, 20 minutes to rest, eat. You could eat it right away if you're in a hurry, but I like this after it rests with the lime juice just for a little bit.

Let's get right to it!

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