Playdate Special: Chicken Salad, Hold the Mayo

My household is anti-mayonnaise. I wasn't raised that way, true, but there's no fighting it anymore. I usually get by scraping it off sandwiches, but my husband has been known to discard the top half of burgers to completely rid his burgers of mayonnaise taint. My older son used to get rashes from it.

It's easy enough to find alternative seasonings for our sandwiches and burgers. And when mayo is a necessary ingredient, I take the time to make an eggless mayonnaise with a recipe from Anna.

But what about creamy chicken salad? I adore chicken salad, but most preparations absolutely drown those lovely chicken chunks with mayo.

I use plain yogurt, preferably nonfat, cut with a bit of lemon juice to make it less cloying. To my taste, it's far brighter and lighter than mayo-based dressing.

The morning of our potluck picnic, I quickly made some whole wheat rolls (from my favorite no-knead bread cookbook), threw together the chicken salad, and tossed a bag of washed spinach greens into the picnic basket. It came together over two hours, accounting for rising and salting and getting-kid-to-preschool time, but hands-on time was under 15 minutes.

I tried out a Martha Stewart Living recipe that looked similar to my own basic chicken salad dressing. Martha being Martha, the recipe calls for roasting two chicken breasts to provide the meat -- that's too much effort for me. Chicken salad is a beautiful way to use leftovers. I usually make it with fresh leftover chicken, or with defrosted leftover chunks I've saved in one- and two-cup bags in the freezer. Her version also served the salad in wheat pitas, but I prefer the chunkiness of this version served atop greens. If you need a little more zip, try adding chopped red onion or a bit of rice vinegar.

Chicken Salad with Tomatoes and Cucumbers

Salting the tomatoes and cucumbers helps remove water content and keeps your salad from getting too drippy. Adapted from Martha Stewart Living, August 2009. Serves 8.

1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt
2 medium tomatoes, quartered, seeded, and cut into large bite-size chunks
1/2 cucumber, cut into large bite-size chunks (peeled if desired)
1 teaspoon coarse salt (half that amount if using sea salt)
1 1/2 cups cooked chicken breast, shredded into large bite-size pieces
ground pepper
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 garlic clove, minced
baby spinach leaves or other greens
fresh mint, oregano, thyme, or oregano -- any one or a combination of two -- coarsely chopped

Line a fine sieve with a paper coffee filter or cheesecloth. Place yogurt in sieve and set over a bowl or the sink and drain for 30 minutes. (Don't let it sit too long or it will get too thick.)

Combine tomatoes and cucumbers in a bowl. Sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt, gently mix together, and let stand for 15 to 30 minutes.

Drain tomato and cucumber mixture and combine in bowl with drained yogurt, chicken, lemon juice, garlic, and remaining salt. Season with pepper to taste, and stir.

To serve, place a handful or two of greens on each plate and top with chicken. Top with chopped herbs.

Tips and Gadgets: Freezing Food for a Rainy Day

I'm not a big fan of prepackaged convenience food. There's more of it in my freezer than I'd like, including a stack of Lean Cuisines for quick grown-up lunches, but most of the time I don't like what I'm sacrificing -- often taste and nutrition -- when I go the fast and easy route.

But I do try to keep my freezer well-stocked with homemade convenience foods: cut-up chicken for stir-fries, caramelized onions and roasted garlic for in-a-flash flavor boosts, cubes of lemon and lime juice, and of course leftovers. My freezer is perhaps too well-stocked -- every few months I throw away far too much that has been ruined by freezer burn. And the wasted money and effort I'm pouring down the garbage disposal especially burns.

WikiHow offers a good guide to protecting your stash from freezer burn. I already use some of the tricks suggested, like using a straw to suck the air out of packaged foods, but there are plenty of tips here that will help me waste less.


How to Prevent Freezer Burn, via Lifehacker

Playdate Special: Our European Summer Picnic

The house was still smelling of fresh paint. The 4th of July was spent on designing a cozier environment -- adding spice and earthy tones to some walls, painting the boys bedroom and adventuring on the removal of a nasty carpet.

In the meantime I was dreaming about Creole food and Moroccan dishes. I even thought about buying a tagine to prepare a meal for our lunch. After realizing that it would be one more object in my collection of not so frequently used pots and pans, I decided to quit of the exotic idea and migrated to a apparently easier project: Creole food, one possible interpretation of a not so hot jambalaya. Didn't work either, as the smell of paint was still confusing my ideas -- and would probably do the same to my guests.

So, let's go for a picnic, eating al fresco. And some of the ingredients I had for my trip to Southern food and North African dish just became a Italian conversion of everything: a frittata with couscous and andouille sausage. Everything was looking fresh and I even wrote the menu on the night before! The kids could indulge on a round and cut sandwich of turkey, spinach and Monterey Jack cheese, fruit salad and gorgonzola crackers from Trader Joe's. Darienne brought the cantaloupe, which became a hit, specially for Diogo, who tasted all of the slices! And for the moms, just one glass of bubbly was missing to transform the lawn into a typical European picnic. But for that, I must confess, we would have to leave the kids somewhere else...

Over excited about the picnic they just decided that the blankets on the grass were an extension of the playground. They insisted on using it for everything else but to serve food! But they finally relaxed with the summer breeze and apparently had lots of fun, frolicking around the sandwiches and fruit salad and playing with cantaloupe slices... Probably better off there cavorting in the grass than under the effects of the fresh paint smell

Moroccan Creole Frittata

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

6 broccoli florets, coarsely chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, seeds and membranes removed, cut thinly
1/2 orange bell pepper, seeds and membranes removed, cut thinly
1 small purple onion, chopped
1 andouille sausage, finely chopped
5 eggs
2 cups cooked couscous
1 handful fresh baby spinach
Kosher salt to taste

Pour olive oil in a medium-size skillet and set over medium heat. Chop all vegetables finely, but the fresh spinach, and stir-fry them over a medium flame. When almost blackened add the sausage and fry it a while to get it crunchy.

In the meantime heat the oven to 350 F. Beat the eggs as if preparing them for an omelette. Pour the veggies into an 8-by-12-inch ovenproof pan and sprinkle the couscous evenly on top. Add the eggs and finally the fresh spinach leaves, and sprinkle with kosher salt.

Bake for around 15 minutes. When the frittata looks like a soufflé, just change the oven to broiling mode and broil for about 5 minutes or when you see the frittata getting golden. To keep it hot while going to the picnic, I wrapped the pan in aluminum foil and let inside a brown grocery bag inside the car.

Full Moon Sandwich

3 olive oil tortillas from Trader Joe's

3 slices of smoked turkey breast, shredded
Enough slices of Monterey Jack cheese to cover the surface of tortilla
1 teaspoon of mustard
1 handful of baby spinach leaves

Heat a skillet and tower the ingredients in layers alternating the ingredients. When the cheese melts turn to the other side to cement all the ingredients. Just wrap the full moon in alumminium foil and cut when ready to serve in slices.

Red Salsa with Mustard Vinaigrette

2 ripe tomatoes, cut in small cubes with seeds
1/2 red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 teaspoon powdered California garlic
2 tablespoons regular yellow mustard
1/2 cup apple or orange juice
1 pinch black pepper
5 fresh basil leaves, cut in thin stripes

Mix all and let the salsa sit on the fridge for at least 1 hour before serving. It's a good company for the frittata and also delicious when served with Trader Joe's Roasted Gorgonzola crackers.