Grilled Chicken and Artichoke Salad

Posted by CK in artichoke, chicken, easy, feta, recipe, salad

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Summer is upon us and it's time to take out your grilling tools! For A and I, summer is usually a time to reset our eating habits - key word HABIT. I'm the first one to know that eating healthy isn't always easy! Sticking to a routine that works is a challenge, but when you find fun and delicious recipes to work with, it makes the task that more easy! In order to get on that train, we've decided to include more salads in our diet. So, on our last grocery run, we made sure to buy ingredients that would help us create interesting salads. Here's one that was definitely a winner and that was SO easy to toss together!

Ingredients (yields 4 large portions):

• 2 chicken breasts
• Montreal Chicken Spice
• 4 handfuls of lettuce (any kind will do, I used mixed greens)
• 1 can artichoke hearts, cut in quarters
• 1/3 cup cubed feta cheese
• 1 1/2 tbsp sunflower seeds
• 1 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 tbsp honey

Method:

1. Heat your BBQ on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes
2. Cut your chicken breasts in half, along the long side (basically make them thinner) and spice them with the Montreal Chicken Spice on both sides
3. Reduce your BBQ to medium-low heat and cook your chicken through, flipping occasionally
4. While your chicken is cooking, toss together the lettuce, artichokes, feta cheese, sunflower seeds, and cherry tomatoes.
5. Once your chicken is cooked, cut it into small cubes and add them to the mix.
6. In a small bowl, thoroughly mix the olive oil, vinegar and honey.
7. Add to the salad and mix well.

This is a perfect salad to make with any kind of left-over chicken!

Vegetarian option: Replace the chicken with shrimp, or simply omit the chicken! 

Enjoy!

- CK

Dill Broccoli Salad

Posted by amanda in broccoli, budget, dill, easy, feta, quick, recipe, salad, vegetarian

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C and I have just come back from a helluva long weekend at an amazing cottage on Leslie Lake. While we were there we revisited some favorite recipes from last year's cottage adventures, and mixed up some new ones. Because it was gonna be hot as heck, I focused on salads this year, making one coleslaw, and one pasta salad. M and I had prepared pretty awesomely for the cottage, but came back to empty pantries at home, so tonight I mixed together some leftover ingredients from the first two, and came up with something pretty tasty for a hot summer's night.

You're gonna need:
1 bag (roughly 5 cups) of broccoli, julienned (I had a bag of PC broccoli slaw in the fridge)
Half an onion, chopped
1/4 of a cucumber, sliced in cookies and quartered
1/4 fresh dill, chopped
PC Artichoke and asiago salad dressing (or anything creamy and cool)
a small handful of feta cheese, crumbled
tons of freshly cracked black pepper

Mix it all together and eat your heart out! Delicious with cheese pizza.

Cottage Component 1: Picnic-Perfect Summer Salad

Posted by amanda in budget, celery, cucumber, dill, dressing, easy, feta, healthy, onion, pasta, pasta salad, pepper, quick, recipe, salad, spinach, tomato, vegetarian, yellow pepper

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It's summer tiiiimmmme and the cooking is eeeeaasy here at Stute-kitchen :) Team Stute has returned from a fantastic weekend away at a cottage with good friends, gorgeous weather, and GREAT food. Combining our forces we came up with a delicious cottage-time lunch: pasta salad and barbecued skewers. Fresh ingredients and a new spin on these old classics takes traditional summer food to a new level of goodness.

You're gonna need:

• Roughly 2 generous cups of uncooked shell (conchiglie) pasta
• One yellow pepper, seeded and cut into slim chunks (or however you like your pepper in a salad), if you go really chunky, use 2 peppers
• Half a cucumber, sliced into half circles
• 2-3 stalks of celery, diced roughly
• 1 pint (usually a container) of cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
• 1/4 of a sweet onion (though any kind would likely do, this salad gets more onion-y the longer it exists, so choose wisely), finely chopped
• 3 tbsp fresh dill, chopped
• 3-5 generous handfuls of baby spinach (mixed greens will do in a pinch, but they don't keep as long once the dressing is mixed in).

Dressing: Whisk together...

1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 heaping  tbsps Red Wine Vinegar
1 clove of garlic, minced
Ground Black Pepper to taste

Topper:

Roughly 1.5 cups of light feta cheese -though really, add as much or a little as you like - , rinsed, dried, and crumbled (my new technique is to rinse the block from the brine, and then squeeze the liquid out in my fist, over the sink - this dries and crumbles simultaneously, then you can just brush your hands off in the salad)

To assemble:

1. Cook the pasta (roughly 8-10 minutes to get it al dente), rinse in cold water, and set aside.

2. Combine all your veggies, except the spinach, in a large bowl, using your hands to mix gently, being
sure to distribute the dill.

3. Add pasta to veggies, again, stirring with hands.

4. Add spinach by handful, assessing how much or how little you will want personally. Mix with hands (this avoids breaking the pasta shells)

5. Pour dressing over pasta and veggies (if you don't like getting oily, use a utensil here, but I swear, hands is the way to go)

6. Chill.
7. Crumble feta into salad before serving. Mix.

This makes roughly 10 servings, depending on the appetites in the room. Be sure to wait 20 minutes or so before hitting the lake!!!
-A