A twist on Chicken Salad

I have been absent from my cooking blog lately. Almost immediately following my last post, Ethan started kindergarten, then my sweet granny passed away. I spent a week in Alabama for that. Then Sara Katherine started preschool. Then I have to dial 911 on my wife-beating next door neighbor (and consequently, have to be a witness for the prosection in his preliminary hearing tomorrow). Then we spend two days dealing with the Ethan-rock-up-his-nose fiasco. Ethan starting kindergarten has absolutely rocked my world. For some silly reason, I thought I'd have more time once kids were in school. Wrong. I haven't quite gotten my groove down yet, but I feel like I'm close. Ethan is in Tae Kwan Do, Sara Katherine is in ballet, and in a matter of weeks, I feel like I'm living a whole new life. Needless to say, this hasn't given way to many opportunities for experimenting or baking. I have done enough to feed my family, but little that is blog-worthy. I did make some yummy bruschetta using tomatoes from our garden, but failed to take a picture, and a food blog is no fun without pictures. If someone is just dying to have that recipe, then just leave me a comment. Anyhow, with fall coming, the cooking blog will be nicely resurrected. Now until December is my favorite time of year for just about everything; baking and cooking included. I already have a list of things I want to make and blog about. And now that my synthroid has kicked in, I actually have a lot of energy again. So I'm excited.

Anyway, back to the point. I'm fortunate to have some really fun friends here in Clovis. On Tuesday, the (very brave) bishop's wife opened the doors to her home for a drop-in crafting day. Everyone could bring their current crafting projects (mine included hairbows and a do-it-yourself Scentsy warmer) and bring a treat to share and craft and visit and eat. It was seriously so much fun. All the kids who weren't in school played with each other and relatively stayed out of the way of the glue guns. Debbie set up big tables all over the kitchen and living room and covered them with protective vinyl covering, and we ate and crafted to our hearts content. Some people didn't even come with crafting projects, but just to visit and eat.

And boy, did we eat.

Debbie made this to-die-for chicken salad. I am a big chicken salad fan anyway, so I was thrilled to get a different way to prepare it and eat it. It was so good that I made it tonight for my family. If you love chicken salad, get ready. You're going to want to eat this all.day.long. Yum!

Debbie's Chicken Salad

(As a warning, this is one of the "approximated" recipes)

For the salad:

Torn romaine lettuce (I actually had a coupon for a free big bag of lettuce, so I used the larger size bagged romaine. Otherwise, I would have chopped my own because I think it tastes better and it's cheaper, and I would probably use an entire head of romaine).
Shredded swiss cheese, about one cup
Chopped Tomatoes (I used three)
Chopped Red Onion (I used 1/2)
Chopped Pecans (I used about 1 cup, measured before they were chopped)
Chopped cooked chicken (I used about 3 cups)

For the dressing:

1 cup mayo
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
Fresh cracked black pepper to your taste
about 1/4 cup red wine vinegar, added 1 T at a time until you get the consistency and tang you like.

Toss salad ingredients in the dressing until fully coated. This is one of those salads where you really do need to toss the whole thing. It won't be as good if you just pour the dressing on top.

We ate this on crossaints (but you could also use pitas or tortillas) and even my children gobbled it up. A perfect paper plate kind of meal. Dang. Just typing this post makes me want to go eat some, now, at 11pm.

Also, Debbie gave me a good tip. She said if you happen to have leftovers for this, the lettuce will get a little wilty-like from being coated in the dressing. She said before you eat it the next day, just toss it again with some fresh romaine, and you won't even be able to taste the wilty stuff. Awesome. We had just enough left for David and me to have lunch tomorrow. I.can't.wait.