Mom's Chicken Salad

I haven't posted anything in a while because everything I've been cooking lately has either been variations of things already on this blog, or didn't feature the veggies in an interesting way. Well, we got carrots and potatoes in the latest veggie box, not all that exciting I know, but I just happened to have roasted a chicken and I realized I could make my mom's chicken salad. I've never seen anyone else put carrots and potatoes in chicken salad before, so I don't know if someone taught her this or if she just made it up one day, but she made this often for our school lunches and this particular recipe is now a cherished part of my childhood.

Mom's Chicken Salad

1 lbs carrots

1 lbs potatoes

1 bay leaf

1 tbsp salt

1/4 large onion

1 clove garlic

1 stalk celery

2 lbs chicken breast, roasted or boiled

3/4 cup mayonnaise

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Finely dice the carrots and potatoes. Season a medium pot of water with the salt and the bay leaf and put on high heat. When the water comes to a boil, add the carrots and potatoes. Boil for 5 minutes and then strain out the water. Discard the bay leaf. Set the carrots and potatoes aside.

Finely dice the celery and onion, and mince the garlic. Finely chop the chicken.

Combine all ingredients together. Serve on top of crackers or use a a sandwich filling.

Bon Apetit!

Oven Roasted Carrots

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Clean and peel 2 pounds carrots. Cut carrots into 1 1/2 to 2 inch long pieces, further slice these into thin spears. Place carrots on a baking sheet and lightly coat with oil (canola, olive, walnut, coconut). Season the carrots with salt and pepper to taste and sprinkle with 2 teaspoons - 1 tablespoon of seasoning (thyme, herbes de provence, sweet basil, dill, italian blend, etc.) Finely dice 2 cloves of garlic or 1 small shallot or ¼ of medium onion. Sprinkle over carrots.

Bake in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes until carrots are softened but still maintain a bit of crunch.

Serve while hot or chill and serve later. Great as a side or atop salads of spinach, lettuce and/or grains.

Carrots and Tops

STOP!

DO NOT THROW AWAY THOSE CARROT TOPS!!!

After receiving carrots with their tops several times, I decided to research the edibility of carrot tops and was quite surprised to find out they were edible! No wonder they kept sending them with the tops on! Carrot tops are rich in protein, vitamins and minerals, especially potassium and can be used as substitutes in many places where you would use parsley. They do kind of have a "carroty" flavor, so you may want to do half parsley and half carrot tops.

Here's a fun way to use the whole vegetable in one go:


Carrots and Tops

6 carrots with tops
4 cloves garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp salt, or to taste

Cut the carrot tops off the carrots and wash well. They tend to be quite dirty, especially near the base. Finely chop the garlic and carrot tops. Cut the carrots into 1-inch chunks. Heat the olive oil on high a large skillet. Add the garlic and stir constantly until the garlic just begins to brown. Add the carrot tops and the salt. Once the carrot tops have wilted, add the carrots and cook until just heated through, or longer if you like your carrots softer.

Bon Apetit!

Glazed Carrots

Just in time for the holidays, we have glazed carrots! I don't know why, but this dish always seemed a little festive to me. It's sweet and has cinnamon, so maybe that's why it reminds me of Fall and Winter. Whatever the reason, it's simple and quick to make and sure to delight your guests! (It's good for when you're just cooking for yourself, too! :-)

Ingredients:

4 or 5 carrots

1/4 cup water

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp butter

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Cut the carrots into thick slices. I like to cut them on the bias to make long slices for a nicer presentation, but however you cut them, it'll end up tasting the same. I don't bother to peel them, but if there are any blemishes, you should trim them off.

Put the carrots into a large skillet over high heat, and add the water and salt. Move the carrots around occasionally to make sure they cook evenly. Once the water is gone, add the brown sugar, butter and cinnamon. Keep stirring until the sugar has dissolved into the butter.

Keep cooking the carrots until the sauce has become glossy and is coating the carrots well. If the sauce looks too thin and runny, that means there is too much water and/or juices from the carrots and the glaze won't stick, so you'll need to keep the carrots on the heat to cook off some of it. Make sure to keep stirring to prevent burning. If they brown a little bit, that's okay. Your pan will need to be very hot throughout this entire process for this to work.

Depending on your cookware and your stove, you may need to get the empty skillet very hot, hot enough to sizzle when you sprinkle a few drops of water on it, before you start the entire cooking process. If your pan is too cool, the carrots may be very over-cooked by the time the glaze thickens, but if you like your carrots that way, then you may want to start with a cool pan intentionally.

I like cinnamon in this, but any sweet spice or combination of spices will work, such as nutmeg, cloves, allspice, etc. Just make sure not to overdo it, moderation is key.

Bon Apetit!

Roasted Root Vegetable Salad

Okay, now we're getting down to business! I had to make a dish to bring to a pot luck, so I knew I had an opportunity to use up lots and lots of veggies!

Here we have (starting at the top and going clockwise) lettuce, leeks, strawberry daikon radish, sweet potato, garlic, onion, carrots and lemons. In the center, the large lumpy thing is a celery root, and next to it are some potatoes. The onions and carrots were not from the veggie box, but we have gotten them in the veggie boxes before. The garlic is from the store and the lemons are from my parents' backyard, admittedly not local as they live over 350 miles away, but I was coming from there anyway ;-)

This of course can be scaled smaller to feed less people, and you certainly don't need this kind of variety. But I must say, the end result with all of these veggies was absolutely delicious!

Here's what you'll need to feed about 10 people:

Salad

5 lbs root vegetables

2 tsps salt

1 tbsp black pepper

1/4 cup olive oil

2 medium sized heads of lettuce (not iceberg!)

Dressing

1/4 cup lemon juice

3/4 cup olive oil

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp prepared mustard

1/2 bulb roasted garlic

Leeks are notoriously dirty vegetables. To clean them, you need to cut them in half lengthwise, leaving the root on to keep the leaves together. Depending on what your leeks look like, you may have to cut up to half of the top off, most of the dark green part. Carefully rinse them under running water.

Make sure to clean between all of the leaves. There usually won't be much dirt closer to the root or the inner layers, but it's better to be safe than sorry. There's nothing like grit to ruin your eating experience. Put the cleaned leeks on a large cookie sheet or broiling pan.

Cut up the remaining root vegetables. I halved the carrots and quartered most of the others. The celery root was pretty big, so I cut it into eighths. I left the skin on most of the vegetables, less waste that way, but sweet potato skins can be weird sometimes, so I peeled it. Not having a lot of experience with celery root, I peeled it pretty aggressively 'cuz it looked like it might be a bit woody. Leave the root end on the onion to keep it together.

Clockwise from the top left: celery root, sweet potato, strawberry daikon radish, carrots, potato and onion.

Cut the top off of the half-bulb of garlic.

Pool a bit of olive oil on the bottom of the pan and put the garlic bulb cut-side down on it.

Toss the vegetables with the olive oil, salt and pepper. It's a bit messy, but it's best to do this with your hands. Make sure to rub down the leeks with oil as well.

Cover the pan with aluminum foil and place in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Remove the aluminum foil and the garlic and continue roasting at 350 degrees for an additional 30 minutes.

While the vegetables are roasting, tear the lettuce into bite size pieces and put them in the bottom of a large serving dish.

Using a butter knife or a small steak knife, pop out the roasted garlic cloves.

Smash the garlic cloves well with a fork or with a mortar and pestle. Whisk together all of the ingredients for the dressing. The prepared mustard helps to keep the lemon juice and olive oil from separating.

Once the vegetables are cool enough to touch, cut them into bite size pieces.

Cut the carrots on the bias to make long slices.

Slice the radishes and the celery root. (celery root not pictured)

Cut the potatoes and the sweet potato into chunks.

Holding the root end of the onion pieces, cut up the onion. Be very careful as the onions will be extremely slippery! If you want, you can simply cut off the root end, and leave the onion layers whole.

Cut up the leeks in a similar manner.

Arrange the roasted vegetables on top of the lettuce.

You can mix them all together like I did in the picture, or you can keep them separated to form larger sections of color. Arranging the vegetables that way can be quite pretty, as well as help people chose which vegetables they want if you anticipate picky eaters. I had to arrange the salad in this container because I was transporting it to the pot luck. If it was going to serve this at home, I would have chosen something more presentable, but it still came out looking pretty good!

Bon Apetit!