Chicken salad with cabbage and crisp pear

I was on Twitter one day and one of the people I follow retweeted a picture of some food with a link to the recipe. The food looked good so I clicked on the link to make sure it was something I'd actually like and sure enough it was. So, I decided to make it and overall I was pretty pleased with the result. Chef Frank Giglio created the recipe and it can be found on his website here.

 

Review: As I said, all-in-all this was a pretty good meal. It took a few bites to get used to but after a while it started to grow on me. I'm not a big fan of cabbage but I really couldn't taste the cabbage at all. It also has pears, which I do like, but I didn't taste them much either. Next time I think I will add more pear than what the recipe calls for. Giglio did say, though, that if you don't have or don't like pears you could use apples and I personally feel as if you could make it more of a citrus dish if you used oranges. To me, the fruit you use doesn't really matter and would change the flavor of the meal just enough to make it something a little different each time if you did try making it with different fruits. You also could add some nuts such as chopped walnuts or peanuts to it if you wanted. As far as the ingredients go, with the mayo you might want to use what it says (although I think you could use 1/2 cup neutral flavored oil instead of 3/4 cups) Ultimately, the flavor of the dish comes from the homemade rosemary mayo you make with it. The rosemary mayo on its own might be better chilled but with this meal I had a couple bites chilled and then heated the rest, and I liked it heated better. It takes some time getting used to though because unlike miracle whip or mayonnaise you would buy in the store, homemade mayo uses a lot of oil that comes through in the flavor. It's a little overpowering at first especially if you can't get your head around the fact that it won't taste like mayo or miracle whip but if you consider this is much healthier you eventually will be able to get around the oily taste. Still, because of the oil I don't think this is a meal I will make often but I certainly will make it here and there. By the way, the recipe says it serves two people, which is true, but I think I could easily get at least four servings out of it and while I had it in a bowl this time, I might try it on bread next time and have a chicken salad sandwich.

Recipe:

Chicken salad with cabbage and pear:

• 2 cups cooked chicken meat, chunked (I used boneless, skinless chicken breast and cut them in cubes)
• 1 cup thinly sliced cabbage
• 1 medium sized pear, cut into matchsticks
• sea salt to taste

Rosemary mayo:

• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp wholegrain mustard (this will be with the rest of the mustard but might be difficult to find and it's kind of expensive)
• a few splashes of lemon juice
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• about 3/4 cup neutral flavored oil such as avocado, grapeseed or sunflower (I used grapeseed)
• 2 tsp fresh chopped rosemary (I just used dried rosemary)
• pinch of fresh black pepper
• sea salt to taste

To make the mayo, place the yolk, mustard and lemon in a large bowl. Vigorously whisk the ingredients while SLOWLY adding in the olive oil and the neutral oil. As you add the oil drop by drop, it will begin to emulsify with the other ingredients and your mayo will be formed (it will go from liquid to solid). This process can also be done in a food processor and is rather easy, it just takes some patience.

If the chicken meat is straight out of the fridge, cook it in a pan on the stove. If it's a leftover from another meal, heat it up slightly.

Cut the cabbage and the pear. Once the veggies, mayo and chicken are prepped, gently toss them together in a bowl. You will have extra mayo so add enough to coat the ingredients to your liking. Taste the salad and season with sea salt and lemon as you desire. Serve as is or over your favorite seasonal greens. It also would make for a wonderful wrap or sandwich.

Garlic lime marinated pork chops

It's been a while since I have cooked anything new and I realized I haven't posted on here lately either. So, I went to the store a couple days ago and bought different meats so I could start cooking again. Tonight's meal was a quick and easy one that I will certainly make again when I don't really know what I want but know I want something fairly soon. The original recipe can be found at the Skinnytaste website here.

Review: This meal, as I said, was really quick to make. It took 20 minutes to marinate and then another 10 minutes to actually cook. It also helped that I had all (or could find a good substitute for) the ingredients. While I got center cut pork chops any pork chop would work. I would say though that you might want to find a medium-cut piece of meat (not too thick but not too thin). My pieces were kind of thin so they were a little dry. You also could taste the lime so if you don't like lime you could leave it out and just use the garlic and herbs. I didn't think it was overpowering but some people might not like that sweet/sour taste. Other than that, though, it was quite good. It wasn't too spicy but just spicy enough to have some heat. I also didn't use lime zest because I didn't have fresh lime and used lime juice instead of the juice from a freshly squeezed lime. Finally, I did not do the cilantro lime white rice that accompanies the recipe. Instead, I used brown rice to make it slightly healthier. This meal also would be good with steamed vegetables but I did not have any for tonight's meal. You also could use the herbs on any meat, but I'd say the flavor combos do work best with pork or even chicken would have a nice flavor with them.

Recipe:

• 4 (6 oz each) lean boneless pork chops
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed (I used minced garlic)
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp chili powder (I substituted with some cayenne pepper)
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1/2 lime, juice of (or just use lime juice)
• lime zest (optional)
• salt and fresh pepper

Trim any fat off the pork if you don't want it as fatty. In a large bowl season the pork with the garlic, cumin, chili powder, paprika, salt and pepper. Squeeze the lime juice and some zest from the lime into the bowl. Mix all together and let it marinade at least 20 minutes (don't wait too long though because you don't want the acid from the lime juice to start "cooking" the pork). Line the broiler pan with foil for easy clean up. Place the pork chops on the broiler pan and broil each side for 4-5 minutes or until nicely browned (the recipe doesn't say but I turned the broiler on to 400 degrees).

Obama touts auto industry comeback in weekly address

With three weeks until the 2012 presidential election, President Barack Obama used his weekly address to tout the successes the auto industry has had since it was bailed out at the beginning of his first term in office. He said auto sales were at the highest they've been in more than four years and the industry has created nearly 250,000 new jobs. He has said nearly 1 million jobs have been saved or created in total because of saving the auto industry.