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Food and Cooking...or lack thereof

Summer Salad

So since I felt a bit of success with my Tri-Color Pasta recipe I thought I’d go out on a limb and post another one. This is just an easy salad I threw together with stuff I had on hand and it has turned out to be a minor hit this summer for BBQ’s and get togethers. It is SO easy. All you need is lettuce, apples, Craisins (dried cranberries), oven roasted almond accents, feta cheese, strawberries, an onion, cooked cut up chicken (optional) and my favorite salad dressing – Brianna’s Poppy Seed dressing (the one with the peach on the front).

First thing you need to do is spin your lettuce with a salad spinner. Why? Because it’s fun. Especially if you have extremely talented spinners on hand to do the spinning for you.

Next I like to combine the apples, feta cheese, almonds, and Craisins in a bowl. You don’t have to do this, I just love the feta cheese all over everything…and I love to snack on this yummy mixture before I eat the salad. Snacking along the way is the only redeeming quality I’ve found in cooking.

Add the diced onion and strawberries (if you like onion and strawberries) and wa-la! If the salad is a side dish, I don’t add the chicken. The chicken is for when I want to pass my salad off as a meal. Many people who live in San Diego eat only salads for meals and are super skinny. It’s rather annoying.

If you want to be super skinny (like many annoying people in San Diego), eat the salad w/o the dressing, but if you want the salad to be really yummy, eat it like I do – smothered in my favorite Brianna’s dressing.

Now to really impress you I’m going to go one step further and give you my favorite BBQ chicken marinade (the one I used for my chicken in the above picture with the corn on the cob).

Barbecue Sauce

1/2 cup vegetable/canola oil
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup tomato ketchup
2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. Chili powder

Whisk all ingredients together. Store in the refrigerator. Place meat in large Ziploc bag and pour in desired amount of sauce. Marinate 4 hours or overnight.

Good stuff!

I know. I’m a regular Martha. ;)
xoxo, Erin
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20 thoughts on “Summer Salad

  1. Impressive! I need a salad spinner. My boys idea of a salad is lettuce, croutons and ranch–borring! I want to come to your house for salad:)

  2. Did you hear that huge thumping sound just now??? That was me, falling out of my chair, onto the floor and hitting my head.

    I am mondo impressed! You’re doing a great job with your little cooking projects!

  3. I love you Erin. You just make my day all the time and you don’t even know it. Thanks for making me laugh and for the yummy idea. Oh and what’s with the salad spinner anyway? Why do I not know what that is?!

  4. a blog post on cooking??!! wow, i’m impressed. and all this time you’ve been telling us that it’s not your thing. that salad looks delish! i will have to give it a try this weekend. thanks for sharing. i do love a yummy salad for dinner but don’t worry, i’m not one of those annoying skinny san diegans. i like to have a nice BIG dessert afterward. ;) who can pass up chocolate?

  5. Wowee Martha! I love salad directions, but even more, I love that you took the time to pose all the dishes and ingredients and take photos for the blog. You are pioneer woman. Next stop, desserts flambé and roasted lamb with rosemary infusion. Do you cater weddings? By the way….give Kenny a BIRTHDAY SHOUT-OUT for me! Woot woot!

  6. Annoying? Would you like to know what’s annoying? The fact that you smother the poppyseed dressing
    (my all time fav as well, outside of Olive Garden dressing) on your salad and you are still super skinny. Talk to the hand….!

  7. Who would have ever thought that I would be printing off recipes from YOUR blog. You are completely throwing me for a loop Erin. You must be an imposter, what have you done with my friend?

  8. I am impressed indeed! I would prefer you just come make these yummy meals for me family so I don’t have to do it.

    About the digi frames in the Addison post…do you have photoshop or elements?

  9. We love our salad spinner! It also works fantastic as an art spinner, just drop in some paint ~ The girls love it! Yummy looking salad and I’m anxious to try your BBQ sauce… I think I have dinner planned – Thanks

  10. Yum. This looks delicious! I seriously need to by myself a salad spinner. The barbeque sauce looks way good too. I’ll have to try both!

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