Easy, Guiltless Crab Salad

I can't pass up anything that's got a recipe in it. Cookbooks, magazines, the back of jars, our electric cooperative's magazine, any of it! My husband makes fun of me because whenever I get a new cookbook, I'll sit and read it for several days. A couple of years ago, we were at my Dad and stepmom's (Theresa) house, and she had a new cookbook. It was called The Most Decadent Diet Ever, by Devin Alexander. I looked through it at least a couple of times over the course of that weekend, and she told me to write down the names of the recipes I wanted and she'd make copies for me. Well, I pretty much wrote down all the recipes in the book! So, bless her heart, Theresa bought me my very own copy!
Everything I've tried has been very good, but this crab salad is the thing I've made over and over. It's absolutely delicious, and pretty much guilt-free. It's in a mayonnaise based sauce (I love mayo!), but it's not heavy because it's mixed with nonfat yogurt and nonfat milk. The fresh herbs really stand out, and I wish I'd had more fresh dill. We had this delicious crab salad for dinner last night, because I just couldn't bear to turn on the oven. A word to the wise, though. It tastes better the longer it sits. I made it Tuesday night for our Wednesday supper. But I took it for lunch today, and it was even better! The extra time in the fridge really let the flavors meld.

Herbed Crab Salad

Devin Alexander

1/4 cup plus 1 Tablespoon light mayonnaise (the olive oil mayo)

2 T fat-free milk

2 T fat-free plain yogurt

1 lb imitation crab meat, coarsley shredded

2 T finely chopped green onion (white and green parts)

2 T finely chopped red onion

2 T finely chopped fresh dill

2 T chopped fresh parsley

Whisk the mayonnaise, milk, and yogurt in a large resealable plastic container until well combined and smooth. Add the crabmeat, green onion, red onion, dill, and parsley. Stir until well combined. Seal the container and refrigerate for at least 6 hours, or overnight for optimum flavor.

Asian Pasta Salad

So you've seen the dismal cupcake failure on Father's Day. You know what makes it even worse? THERE WAS NO DESSERT AT THE FATHER'S DAY PARTY. Nothing. Until David's cousin Connie went home and made cookies! God bless Connie. She's a woman after my own heart. She also made some of that yummy cracker-sugar-chocolate brittle stuff. She saved the day, for sure. You can't have a potluck without dessert!
Anyway, I thought I'd give you a glimpse of the pasta salad I took to the party. I wanted something I could pretty much throw together in about 15 seconds between getting home from church and running to Earl & Shirley's house, and something that didn't have mayo or cheese in it, since I knew it would be sitting out for a lot of the hot and humid Kentucky summer weather. I got out my trusty Taste of Home magazine collection and found this delightful recipe for Asian Chicken Sesame Salad (except I kind of adapted it, as you'll see...namely, there is no chicken involved). It's very simple to put together. There's a simple dressing made from...

canola oil, sugar, pepper, teriyaki sauce, and white wine vinegar. I had also planned to put in some toasted sesame oil, but got addled and forgot it. I really missed it. Then you have the salad ingredients...

bowtie (farfalle) pasta, mandarin oranges, dried cranberries, honey roasted peanuts (super-yum), water chestnuts, spinach, green onions, and parsley. All of the ingredients are combined, and you get this:

It was pretty good, but darn it, I wish I had remembered the sesame oil! Here's the recipe...I didn't add the chicken (I didn't figure we'd need it with the rest of the spread at the party), or the sesame seeds (I couldn't bring myself to pay $4.28 for them).

Sesame Chicken Salad

Carolee Ewell, Taste of Home Magazine

16 oz. bowtie pasta

1 cup vegetable/canola oil

2/3 cup white wine vinegar

2/3 cup teriyaki sauce

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon pepper

3 cans (11 oz. each) mandarin oranges, drained

2 cans (8 oz. each) sliced water chestnuts, drained

2 cups cooked cubed chicken

1 1/3 cups honey roasted peanuts

9 oz. fresh spinach, torn

6 oz. dried cranberries

6 green onions, chopped

1/2 cup fresh minced parsley

1/4 cup sesame seeds, toasted

Cook pasta according to package directions; drain and place in a very large bowl. In a small bowl, combine the oil, vinegar, teriyaki sauce, sugar, and pepper. Pour over the pasta and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Just before serving, add the remaining ingredients; gently toss to coat.

Yield: 22 servings (1 cup each)

Other People's Food!

I'm a member of our very small church's women's group, which is called The Agape Women's Group. We have lots of fun together at our monthly meetings where we fellowship, work on service projects, and EAT. We have a "Secret Sisters" program in our group, where each woman is a "Secret Sister" to another. We provide encouragement and prayer for our "Secret Sister," and we try to give little gifts during the year for important events (Christmas, Easter, birthdays, etc.). In June, we have our Birthday Party, where we reveal our identities to our "Secret Sister", play games, and EAT. Our annual birthday party was last night, and while we had a small turnout, we had a lot of fun. Each member brought some food for our festivities, and I thought I'd let you take a look at what we had. Maybe if I can persuade everyone to give me the recipes, I'll include those in upcoming entries!

First, I'll show you what I brought:

They got a little mangled before I got to take a picture, but these are mini-turkey and cheese rolls (I also brought mini-ham and cheese rolls). I got the recipe from The Big Red Kitchen. Robin Sue has a ton of great recipes. The only thing I did differently was use different seeds. I used a mixture of caraway seeds and celery seeds, where Robin Sue calls for poppy seeds. I actually made these for May's Agape meeting, and they were so well-received that they were requested for this meeting, too! Luckily for me, I made too many in May, so I popped two pans in the freezer (pre-bake), so all I had to do was defrost them and bake them. It was a lifesaver, as this is the busiest week I've had in a LOOOOOONG time.

This is Midge's Seafood Pasta Salad. She is a South Beach Diet devotee, so she usually brings something "Beachy" to our events. This was GREAT! I'll have to get the recipe from her. Also, can you believe that after eating this salad, my cousin Brenda (our hostess) said she'd never eaten crab?! Geeze, Louise! We've got to get Brenda out more!
Devona brought this delightful Cucumber-Tomato salad. There's a good chance some of this came from her garden, but I never did hear for sure. Devona is a fabulous cook, and she's the leader of our food committee. She makes sure that we never go hungry!

These tasty little appetizers came courtesty of my Aunt Betty. She took green onions, covered the bottom half with cream cheese, then wrapped them in ham. So simple...so TASTY! I've got to remember this for future gatherings! They look so elegant!

Devona also put together this cheese/grape tray. Red grapes, delicious flatbreads, and Boursin cheese. Boursin cheese is becoming a pattern in my life. A couple of weeks ago, Earl and Shirley had some Boursin cheese at their house. Now, Devona brings it to the Agape meeting. I had NEVER had Boursin cheese before these two occasions, but I know it's been around for ages. I told Earl and Shirley that you can make your own Boursin cheese, and I have all the ingredients...I planned to fix some for them to have with their houseguests earlier this week, but life interfered with my plans. Now, after last night, I've got to make the homemade Boursin cheese to see how it stacks up. Keep your eyes out for that later in the week.

Did you notice anything about our spread? What was noticeably absent? DESSERT. You know why? Because that's WHAT I DO. I do dessert. Always. But this week has been crazy-busy for me, and I slacked off and didn't get it done. Therefore, we didn't get anything chocolatey, peanut buttery, cakey, custardy, flaky, or gooey. I'll have to plan better next year!

Happy Mother's Day!

For Mother's Day, my stepdad, sister, and I put together a delicious meal for Mom after church today. She requested ham, one of her favorites. Chet made his mom's famous rolls and some macaroni salad, I made a Bluegrass salad, Dorie's Tall and Creamy Cheesecake (mom LOVES cheesecake), and Dorie's Tartest Lemon Tart (it's our assignment for this Tuesday). We had quite the feast...we were all gluttons. And I thought I'd milk the meal for all it's worth and use some of the components as posts here on The Sweet Life. By the way, in the picture above, my sister Allison is on the left, Mom is in the middle, and I'm on the right.

Let's get down to business with the Bluegrass Salad, recipe courtesy of my in-laws. Let's start with the salad components. Who shall we invite to this party?

You'll need a couple of hearts of romaine, (maybe you've also got some baby greens from your husband's uncle's garden...if you do, they'd be great), walnuts lightly toasted in butter, some sweetened dried cranberries, a couple of nice pears, and feta cheese. The recipe really calls for blue cheese, but Mom doesn't really care for it, so we're going with feta on this one. We're gonna need some dressing, too. Let's see what we can come up with...

We'll need some extra virgin olive oil, some rice vinegar, balsamic vinegar, and some Splenda. You'll need to whisk it all together real good, and you've got a fantastic dressing! Toss all of your ingredients together, and you'll have one dynamite salad!
Here's the recipe if it sounds like something you'd like to try. I highly reccommend it! It's fabulous!

Bluegrass Salad

Recipe Courtesty of Earl Orr

For the Dressing:

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup rice vinegar

1 tbs. balsamic vinegar

5 pkg. artificial sweetener (if this freaks you out, feel free to sub regular sugar)

Whisk all the ingredients and set aside.

For the Salad:
2 hearts of romaine, chopped
Walnuts, toasted in butter (use as much as you like)
Sweetened dried cranberries (use as much as you like)
Blue Cheese (as much as you like; I used feta instead, which is good, too)
2 D'Anjou Pears, chopped

Mix all ingredients. Top with dressing and mix well to combine. Enjoy!

Chicken Salad...Mmmm!

As promised, I'm here with the Cranberry Chicken Salad recipe that I took to my in-laws yesterday for lunch. Last week, I put a whole chicken in the crockpot before work so we'd have an easy supper when I got home. That night, we made the chicken (which falls apart because it's so moist!) into baked chimichangas. Later in the week, we used some more of the shredded chicken to top a salad (one of David's favorite meals! Who would have thought a meat 'n potatoes kinda guy would love grilled chicken salad?!). We still had about 3 cups of delicious shredded meat in the fridge, so I thought I'd make us a nice chicken salad. I found the recipe on the back of the bag of Mariani Premium Sweetened Dried Cranberries.

Cranberry Chicken Salad

3 cups cooked chicken, cubed (I shredded mine)

2 celery stalks, chopped

1 cup sweetened dried cranberries

1 cup walnuts, chopped

1 tsp. dried thyme

1/2 tsp. dried sage

1 tsp. garlic powder

salt and pepper to taste

Dash of lemon juice

Mayonnaise, to taste

Mix all ingredients together, adding mayonnaise to taste. Chill for at least one hour before serving.