salad Archives - Authentic Simplicity

This post was originally published in June, 2009. I haven’t blogged in a few days because we went up to Lancaster, PA to visit with some family and have a short mini-vacation. Vacations are always fun, but, especially when it’s such a short vacation, it’s sometimes hard to get back home and go back to the daily grind. So I decided to bring some of my vacation home with me.

I decided to bring home with me some yummy food I ate while on vacation. Of course, I couldn’t actually bring back the food itself, since it would have gotten quite yucky waiting to be put in my fridge (ew!) so I just brought back the ideaof the food I enjoyed so I could recreate it at home.The first dish I enjoyed was the Fuji Apple Chicken Salad at Panera. What I like about their chicken salad is that the apples are dried, not fresh. Not your leathery, smushy kind of dried, but more like an apple chip dried. The combination of the sweet crunchy apple blended so perfectly with the other flavors in the salad, that it was super delicious!Unfortunately, the only dried apples I had on hand at home were the leathery, smushy variety which simply would not do for my purposes. So I set out to make myself some apple chips.

First, I cored an apple and sliced off the ends. I could have peeled it as well, but I opted to leave the peel on for color. Besides, the peel was left on in the Panera salad, and since I was attempting to recreate my vacation, I had to follow it as closely as possible.

Then I sliced the apple into thin, even slices (unfortunately, some of them I sliced a little TOO thin) and soaked them in lemon water for a few minutes, to limit browning. This step is not necessary unless you want them to be as white as possible.

Then I lined a baking sheet with wax paper, greased the wax paper and laid the apple slices out in a single layer, with plenty of room between slices. I put this in my oven, on the lowest setting possible (which happens to be 200 on my cheap-o apartment oven) for about 45 minutes. It would have been better to use a lower setting for a longer period of time, but alas and alack, that was not possible for me!

And here are the apple chips, ready to be put into my Apple Chicken Salad.

Recipe: Copycat Panera Fuji Apple Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Romaine lettuce
Boneless skinless chicken breast, cooked and cubed
Apple chips
Walnuts, or Roasted almonds, chopped
Dried cranberries
Tomatoes, chopped
Gorgonzola cheese (or feta, or goat cheese)
Red onion, chopped

Balsamic Vinaigrette:

2T. balsamic vinegar
1T.apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
freshly ground black pepper
dash of salt

Instructions

Layer the ingredients in a salad bowl.
To make the vinaigrette: Combine all vinaigrette ingredients in a jar with a lid and shake until well blended. Pour over salad and serve immediately.

Sharing at Mommy Monday, Try a New Recipe Tuesday, and Tasty Tuesday

Maybe I shouldn’t admit this, but I’m a huge fan of the TV show Psych, and I’m super bummed that it’s on cable TV, and I don’t have cable. {insert pouty face} I can watch old episodes on Netflix, but when the brand new season starts in October, I’m going to be hopelessly behind! Sad, sad.

The only reason I mention it is because the main character, Shawn, has quite a few “-isms” that are repeated regularly throughout the show, and one of them is “ish”. He intentionally stretches the truth in many areas of his life, and occasionally, when he does, he rectifies the situation by adding an “ish” at the end to make it all better. A lie followed by an ish = truth. Ish.

Who needs to be exact and precise when you’ve got “ish”?! Not me. For example, this potato salad. I’m currently egg- and dairy- free for the sake of my nursing son, who is allergic, which makes it pretty difficult to enjoy a good potato salad. As you no doubt know, American potato salads are dressed with a delicious concoction made mostly of dairy products and eggs. The alternative is a German potato salad, made with mustard and vinegar, which is not my favorite (although I make it on occasion and eat it happily enough).

This past summer, I was grateful to discover French Potato Salad. French Potato Salad requires neither dairy, nor eggs, nor mustard, although it does have a touch of vinegar. I found it to be far more delicious than German Potato Salad ( nothing against the Germans, mind you, just personal preference here!), and was thrilled to bring it to a family function. (Never mind that we completely forgot about it and never ate it at said family function!)

I am talking about Julia Child’s French Potato Salad, you must understand, which is where the “ish” first starts sneaking in. I have my suspicions that Julia Child’s version is not quite as French as it is supposed to be, considering many other recipes out there that seem far more French to my untrained eye. That doesn’t matter to me, though, because it meets all my vital requirements: Quick, Easy, Cheap, Healthy. Oh, and dairy- and egg-free.

It definitely gets even more ish-y when you see my tweaked-up version of Julia Child’s version. This final concoction would likely not be even remotely recognized by any French-ish person, but it’s still delicious. So who cares?

French Potato Salad. Ish.

adapted from Julia Child’s French Potato Salad

Ingredients

1.5 lbs potatoes
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 TBSP finely chopped onions or green onions
1/4 cup chicken stock
1 1/2 TBSP rice vinegar
2-3 TBSP fresh chopped parsley
2-3 TBSP olive oil
1-2 pieces bacon, cooked and crumbled, optional
Salt and Pepper to taste

Instructions

Peel and slice the potatoes into 1/4″ thick rounds. Boil in salted water until just tender (not too tender or you’ll have mashed potato salad). Drain and return to pan; cover for a few more minutes to allow them to firm up. Gently place potatoes in a large bowl, and add onions, chicken stock, vinegar and parsley. Let it steep for about 10 minutes or so; add salt and pepper to taste. Toss gently with olive oil, then top with bacon just before serving.

It’s a very QUICK potato salad, just as quick as the regular old American kind.

It’s very EASY, too, despite the “French” descriptive.

It’s even CHEAPer than regular potato salad because it doesn’t have eggs or mayo or other expensive ingredients in it.

It’s a decently HEALTHY potato salad, too, except that it’s mostly potato. Not that I mind potatoes; they’re very good for you, it’s just there’s no added nutrition. If you feel like un-Frenchifying it even further, go ahead and add some veggies like diced carrots or peas.

Shared with Side Dish Saturdays and the following: