Salad #2 (because I don’t have a name!)

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I got this yummy salad from my Grandma, she made it for a family get together last Sunday and I just jumped on it. I love a good green salad and this one it really good. I don’t really have a name for it, so if any of you have suggestions please speak up and you can have bragging rights if I pick your name.

Here are the ingredients:

2 apples, chopped but not peeled
1 cup cashews
1 cup crasions
1 cup swiss cheese, shredded
2 chicken breasts, chopped
1 head of read lettuce, washed and shredded


For this salad we are going to make our own dressing

Dressing Ingredients:

2/3 cup Olive Oil
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp Deli Mustard
1/4 tsp onion salt
1 Tbsp Poppy seeds

Put all the ingredients in a blender or bowl, and whisk (or blend) until everything is mixed well and the sugar is dissolved.

(sorry blurry picture)

Add all the ingredients to lettuce and toss, then add the dressing and toss again.

This beautiful salad makes a great side dish (omit the chicken) or a wonderful main dish with some french bread.

First Things First

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In the majority of my salads I add grilled chicken. I don’t really know why I call it grilled, because it isn’t really grilled, more like baked, but grilled sounds so much better so that is what I will call it. Anyway, in most of my salads I add chicken, I am serving them as the main meal and I think it helps to fill up tummies when there is a little meat. It also helps Dadzoo wrap his brain around the idea that, seriously, dinner is a salad. Not that he complains, but I swear I can see visions of steak and potatoes dancing around his head while he eats my “chick” food!

I figured I would show you how I bake my chicken.

First I place the chicken breast in a plastic, zip lock bag.


Then I pound it like a crazy woman, it is fabulous therapy! It needs to be pounded out evenly so it will cook evenly.


When it is nice and flat, place it on a baking sheet and season, I add salt and pepper, very simple, but good.

Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes, or until done, turning the chicken at least once in the cooking process.


When the are all cooked I let them cool, then place them in a bag in the freezer, then when I need them they get pulled out and thawed all day in the refrigerator.

Later today I will post the first salad recipe in my series!

Sweet Tooth

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Last week I stole Punk #3 from school and whisked her away for a surprise lunch, celebrating her 7th birthday. She was so excited as we were driving into town to meet Dadzoo at IHOP for her favorite pancakes. When Punk #3 gets excited she chatters away without hardly taking a breath. I try not to zone her out but it is a little hard and she doesn’t really notice as long as I insert the appropriate “um-huh” in the correct places. As she was just a chit-chatting on the drive something she said caught my attention.

“Mom, my tooth is wiggly, someday I am going to lose my sweet tooth, then I won’t like candy or cookies or cake or anything, that will be the day I start to like vegetables, I wonder when that will happen?” (imagine big breathless run-on sentence.)

“lose your sweet tooth? which tooth is that?”

“I don’t know, but I will find out when I start to like vegetables, Mom when did you lose yours?”

Trying so hard not to bust out laughing I said “I don’t think I ever did!”

Questions, Questions

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For all of you who were worried about the snow on my flowers, today all the snow is melted off and the bright yellow flowers are big bright and blooming! Daffodils laugh in the face of freezing cold snow and rain!

Terri wanted to know the cost different between a can of chicken broth and my homemade jars. Well…..I am so bad at that, I read blogs all the time and their writers can calculate the cost of homemade foods down to the penny. I don’t do that. My brain cells are so not that way!

Anyway, I am a helpful kind of gal so I will try to figure it out a little here. Starting with the first ingredient: turkey carcass….I am going to consider that free, since we had all ready picked it clean and used the meat for several meals.

Onion….I bought a bag of 10 onions for about $1.20 (if I remember correctly, I am so bad at that) and I used two of those….so 24 cents?!

Garlic….two cloves, a neighbor gave a garlic bulb because she was afraid it was going to go bad…so for me that was free, but if I had bought the garlic….I don’t know how much that would be, but I am sure it would only be pennies….sorry!

Salt and Pepper…..pennies too.

Sage, Thyme and Parsley….I grew these in my garden, so I consider them free, I don’t charge for my time! How ever if you had to buy it I am sure it would only be a dollar or two for the whole batch.

Jars…..I have those on hand, the jars I used for this project I have had for many, many years…they have paid for themselves at this point.

Canner….I borrowed my Mom’s canner, so free for me. If you were to buy one you are looking at about 80$ But if you use it a lot it will pay for itself too.

Time….my time? Priceless!

So here is a quick run down:

Turkey-free
onions-0.24
Garlic-0.25
Herbs-2.00

Total-2.50 for 12 jars. Of coarse if I have to go buy the jars it would be much more, but I consider that an investment, and for me the herbs didn’t cost anything, so that takes it down even more.

I haven’t bought chicken broth for a long time, so I can’t really compare the difference I don’t know what a store bought can even costs. (The can I photographed was even past its expiration date!) For me it is more about the nutrition than the cost.

Hope that helped a little…if there is anyone who would like to be more scientific about it, please let us know what you come up with.

Terri had a second questions, she wanted to know if you could process chicken broth in a water bath canner. The answer to that is a big fat NO! Don’t do it, don’t attempt it. It is dangerous. The temperatures in a water bath canner don’t get hot enough to kill all the yucky bugs can can get in there, it has to be a pressure canner. If you don’t want to mess with a pressure canner I have also made broth and froze it, the cost saving s are the same and you don’t have to take the time to pressure can it, it is a great option if you don’t have a lot of time.

Happy cooking!

Chicken…er…Turkey broth

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I really enjoy canning. I love that I can take with my own two hands wonderfully nutritious foods and preserve them in a way that my family can enjoy it for months to come. It satisfies me to know that no matter what happens, there will be food on the table, and not just any food, but good foods without added preservatives and flavorings. When I am finished canning and I line those jars up on the shelves I feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. I am a Home Economist and I have ensured for a little while that the economy of my home will stand, with full belly’s!

For the last little while I have been trying to use all my food to the last little bit and not let anything go to waste. Sometimes I am really good at this, other times I slack off a bit! Sunday I made a big Turkey dinner and Monday morning I set that big old Turkey carcass in my biggest stock pot and let it boil all day. Usually when I make broth I freeze it, but Monday I decided that I was going to try something different. A couple of weeks ago I canned potatoes, it was my first attempt at using a pressure canner and since nothing blew up I figured I could give it another try. This is what I ended up with, and I am so proud!

12 pints of homemade turkey broth, ready to sit on my shelf and become dinner at some point.

As I mentioned before, I like canning because it give me the ability to control what is in my food without spending a fortune. I wanted to see what is in a store bought can of chicken broth, so I dug one up one lonely can and read the label.

It really as very few ingredients, there are some that I can’t pronounce and have no idea what they are. There is one big bad ingredient that I like to avoid completely and that would be Monosodium Glutamate, or also known as MSG. It isn’t good for our bodies, and a lot of people (including me) have sensitivities to it, there are some people who are very allergic to it. Cooking and preserving from scratch makes it possible for me to avoid all the unwanted ingredients. I know exactly what is in my broth: turkey; onions; garlic; salt; pepper; sage; thyme; and parsley.

Cooking and canning from scratch also gives me the flexibility to alter recipes to the tastes of my family. I know that the broth I made is going to be exactly how I like it with as much or as little salt as I want.

What kinds of things do you cook from scratch?