Waldorf-ish Spinach Salad
5-6 oz clamshell spinach
2 IQF chicken breast halves (microcooked topped with 6 capfuls of oj, and some salt and garlic powder… 10 min–from frozen, takes half the time if thawed–flipping every 2.5 min, let rest 5 min) **
2-3 lg handfuls/sm bunches grapes, halved
1 apple, diced
1 handful of nuts (optional)
dressing:
1.5 fluid oz (3 T) olive oil
3 fluid oz (6 T) orange juice
3/4 fluid oz (1.5 T) spicy brown mustard
3/4 fluid oz (1.5 T) apple cider vinegar

Put all in a lidded jar (I use a baby bottle that is marked in 1/4 oz increments, but you may not have copious amts of baby bottles laying around) and shake to combine; or dump all in a bowl and whisk together; or toss all in a mini proccessor and blitz… [Note: This is the amount I used on the salad but you can make a bigger quantity and pop the leftovers in the fridge...]

** emailer, and anyone else who may wonder: IQF = Individually Quick Frozen… these are just the pieces in a big 5 lb freezer bag that are individually frozen so you can pull out only what you need…

Hubster again…This is just a quick tomato salad that I made the other night.

12 Cherry tomatoes
12 Kalamata Olives Pitted and sliced in half
4 oz of fresh mozzarella cheese – sliced into cubes
2 oz of creamy ceasar vinagrette salad dressing

Slice Cherry tomatoes in half and mix with kalamata olives and mozzarella cheese. toss with salad dressing and serve.

Garlic Mushy Pea Panzanella
1/2 head of garlic (normally I’d roast it, but I didn’t have time or the inclination)
1 lb frozen peas
bread cubes (not sure how much, I used the top halves of an entire batch of pop can biscuits, maybe 10 I think, that we burned to death over the weekend…and I precut them days before to let them dry out)

Boil the cloves in about 1 c salted water for around 5 min. Remove and add peas for a few minutes.  Toss peeled garlic, peas and (Here’s where I’d normally have added some olive oil, if the fat content of the ziti hadn’t been so insane) some of the liquid in the blender. Blitz and add s/p to taste if needed and pour over and toss with the bread or croutons. And again if I weren’t chintzing on fat, I’d have garnished with a fair amount of parm.

Michael Chiarello makes a more involved pea panzanella if you want something more exciting and it’s good…but this night I wanted easy and needed to cut out all the good stuff to accomodate for the truckload of calories in the entree. I think he has another one as I thought I remembered eating two of his, but maybe not…as I’m not easily finding it.