Pragmatic Compendium

I LOVE Panera Bread Salads! I was quite distraught when the Orchard Harvest Salad (photo) disappeared from the menu. I’m hoping it will be back next winter.

These days I’m ordering the Fuji Apple Salad or the Fandango with chicken, neither one being my favorite. My FAVORITE is a summer salad, the Strawberry Poppyseed & Chicken Salad. (Ingredients and Nutritional Info)

Problem. These salads are too expensive to buy every day. And I kinda want one EVERY day. So . . .

I’m experimenting and making my own Panera Wannabe Salads! Here’s the latest version:

(Realize the “5 minute” part only works because I clean and prep veggies before I put them away. If I put shrink wrapped and unprepared veggies in the fridge right when I get home from the grocery store, I sacrifice them all to the mold gods a week later and give them an honorable burial in a big, black bag. I’ll write about it in more detail some other day, but what you see in the photo is a good representation of how I store veggies in the fridge. Notice all the containers filled with food are NOT round. I have an aversion to round containers for storage. They waste space! The round container is what I use as a salad shaker to completely coat my salad with a minimal amount of dressing.)

I just layer the salad ingredients in the round bowl. For this salad, I used:

I put the lid on the round container and give it some serious shaking, take off the lid, put a pretty plate on top of the container and FLIP! (That’s why I use a round shaker.) Here’s what I got this time:

If you’re a guy, feel free to eat it directly out of the plastic bowl while leaning over the sink.

This week, the “Spring Mix” lettuce in a bag was on sale, buy one get one free, so I’ll definitely be inventing even more Wannabe Salads! And saving more money!

I stumbled upon a recipe that turned out to be a REAL hit! The fact that it took 5 minutes to prepare made it even better! Seriously. 5 minutes.

Ingredients:
4-5 boneless chicken breasts (we buy them by the bag)
1 (15 1/2 ounce) can black beans (drained)
1 (15 ounce) can corn (drained)
1 (15 ounce) jar salsa, any kind
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese

Directions:
Put the FROZEN (yes, FROZEN!) chicken breasts into the crockpot.
Pour in the black beans, the corn and the salsa.
Turn the Crockpot on high and walk away.
Come back in about 4-5 hours.
When it’s done, toss in the cream cheese and put the lid back on for 1/2 hour.

Done. Eaten. Gone.

FirstHusband and FavoriteSon both gave it two thumbs up. Over at www.recipezaar.com it has a total of 480 reviews with a total rating of 4 1/2 stars. Take a look at the reviews to see variations suggested by those who have tried it!

My variation? I had to leave the house after two hours, so I cooked it 2 hours on high, 6 hours on low. Also, my serving didn’t have the cream cheese in it and I still liked it! The chicken was SO moist!

Click Here for a print friendly version in PDF!

Life’s a little busy this week, so I’m going to combine my posts for Kitchen Tip Tuesdays and Works for Me Wednesdays .

I mentioned before - I LOVE my Vidalia Chop Wizard! Last time I showcased this wonderful little gadget, someone commented that they were surprised that it could handle tougher veggies, like onions and carrots, so I thought I’d show how the chop wizard handles onions. Notice that I’m using the smaller chopping grate this time and check out the time on the little red clock.

Again, I PROMISE you - I did NOT touch that little red clock! I just LOVE this thing! Chopped onions really are a breeze!

But you probably noticed I didn’t finish all three onions. I actually filled up the chop wizard and had to stop to complete my “onion chopping ritual,” so I thought I’d go ahead and include it in this post as well. I usually chop onions in bulk to freeze, but I only had three today. Here’s what I do:

I chop all the onions I’ve got, either using the chop wizard OR, when I’m really in a hurry, I use my Oster food processor attachment. (I have a 1990 Oster Kitchen Center, but for smaller jobs, I keep my 2003 Oster blender on the counter because it takes most of the same attachments. Isn’t it cool that the attachments are interchangeable?) Anyway, I had an extra 5 minutes today and I really prefer the onions chopped in nice little squares - they’re just prettier than the shredded onion that the food processor produces.

Then, I lay out the chopped onions on a large metal cookie sheet for flash freezing. Flash freezing refers to the freezing technique where you lay out something individually, best on a metal cookie sheet (it gets colder much faster than a cutting board), and freeze it quickly. It keeps the food from sticking together in a big frozen ball of goo. REALLY great for freezing any kind of berry!

Then, I sit here for about a half an hour and write this post. (besides, I need my coffee.) I usually leave the onions in longer because I forget about them. If you can leave them for an hour or two, that’s actually better. I once left them in overnight with no problems. At a minimum, you want ice crystals to form.

When the onions are frozen, I move them from the cookie sheet into something better for freezer storage, such as a Ziploc bag. I stack the bags in the freezer and because they are flat, they take up very little space. (I was going to include a photo of the frozen onions on the cookie sheet, but you can’t see the ice crystals, so it just looks the same as the pre-frozen cookie sheet photo.)

Later, when a recipe calls for onion, I’m ready! They defrost really fast! I leave the bag on the counter for a few minutes and when I take the slab of onion out of the the Ziploc, it just crumbles.

It Works for Me!

Don’t forget to enter this week’s clean sweep(stakes)!

I LOVE my Vidalia Chop Wizard!

I love any gadget that makes my life easier and speeds up a job! I got a beautiful ceramic knife for Christmas two years ago and I used to dice red, yellow and orange peppers by hand. Not anymore! Check out the time on the little red clock.

I PROMISE you - I did NOT touch that little red clock! I just LOVE this thing! Chopped onions are a breeze!

Mine has two blade sizes, so you can dice even smaller than what you see in these pictures. And it’s DISHWASHER SAFE! The best $20 I spent last year! (and, no. I didn’t get paid to write this - I just really like it.)

Don’t forget to enter this week’s clean sweep(stakes)!