Turkey Salad Sandwich

Now that I was done with Christmas dinner, and I had taken apart the turkey and put it in a big Tupperware for later use. So then began the long process of figuring out which recipes sounded good enough and good enough for me to use. I settled on turkey salad sandwiches, turkey soup, turkey pasties, turkey and brown rice casserole, and turkey pot pie. Yeah, that's a lot of nights (and lunches) of turkey.

The first night after Christmas, I had to work, so I thought the turkey salad sandwiches would be the quickest and easiest to make and eat.I was right. This recipe is so good, that I have started making it to take in my lunches, with chicken instead of turkey (because really, who has time to make a turkey every week?) I got this recipe from Closet Cooking, which is an awesome cooking site with all kinds of experimental (but not always good for diabetics) ingredients that I never would have thought of using in my food. Plus, his blog writing is really fun, his story about he started cooking is interesting, too.

Also, when looking for bread to have with this sandwich, I came across this stuff by Orowheat, called Double Fiber bread. It's awesome. It's light, fluffy, soft, and has a good flavor. I can have two pieces for the carbs of one. So instead of having the requisite one piece of bread for my sandwich with 20 carbs, I can have 2. (this is with fiber included in the count). It works great for keeping this sandwich healthy, and it actually makes good toast (which is something I crave a lot of, but never have). I added a picture of the bag so you can find it too.

Turkey Salad Sandwich

Ingredients:
1 cup cooked turkey (shredded)
1/2 apple (cored and diced)
1 stalk celery (chopped)
1 green onion (chopped, or red)
1 tablespoon pecans (toasted and coarsely chopped)
1 tablespoon dried cranberries
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 splash lemon juice
2 leaves sage (chopped)
salt and pepper to taste
2 leaves lettuce
2 slices bread

Directions:
1. Mix everything but the lettuce and bread in a bowl.
2. Assemble sandwich.

 

Yummy sandwich

Great Bread

 

More yummy sandwich

 

And now... it looks at you and says..."EAT ME!"

Enjoy and Happy New Year!

Hot Chicken Salad

The name of this recipe made me think - Oh, gross! Hot lettuce! But no. I had to read it a couple of times before I realized - ooooh, like chicken salad sandwiches! Yum! And yum, it was. It's simple. It's tasty. And I think you can just about add anything that floats your boat, that you would normally like in your regular chicken salad. Have fun with different veggies, add raisins, or apples. The original recipe is from Diabetic Living Magazine again, and it asks for yellow sweet pepper - I don't like peppers. I just don't. I don't like the way they taste at all. So, I omitted them from this recipe.

I hope you like it.

Hot Chicken Salad
3 cups cubed cooked chicken (about 1 pound)
1 cup sliced celery
1 cup chopped yellow sweet pepper
3/4 cup shredded reduced fat cheddar cheese (3 oz)
1 10.75 oz. can reduced-fat and reduced-sodium condensed cream of chicken soup
1 6 oz. carton plain low fat yogurt (I could not find low fat plain, only nonfat, and it worked just fine)
1/4 c slilced green onions
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 cup crushed cornflakes
1/4 cup sliced almonds

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In a large bowl, stir together chicken, celery, sweet pepper, cheese, soup, yogurt, green onions, lemon juice, and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Transfer to 2 qt. rectangular baking dish.

2. In a small bowl, stir together cornflakes and almonds. Sprinkle evely over chicken mixture.

3. Bake uncovered about 30 minutes or until heated through. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

I have no notes on this, except to read the recipe through first and make sure you have enough time to cook the chicken. I didn't realize that I had to do this and it took me a little longer to make dinner than I had originally anticipated. It was totally worth it, but I wish hadn't had to wait so long for it.

Oh, I also apologize for the lack of pictures. We have been pretty hungry when dinner comes out of the oven lately, and have forgotten to take pictures. I will try to get on that as soon as I can!

And another thing... I notice a few people looking at this, do any of you have any suggestions to make the page better, and types of recipes, stats, food types that you would like to see on here? Links? Anything? I am open to suggestions. I haven't done this type of blog before, so any help is welcome!

Thanks!

Mediterranean Pork Chops and Spinach Strawberry Salad

I "forced" my husband into making dinner the other night because I was too tired. So, I gave him something fairly (OK, really) easy to make. Although there are very few ingredients in the main dish, and several in the salad, it was simple and flavorful. We have no pictures because it smelled so good and we were so hungry that we pretty much devoured it when it came out of the oven. The pork chops are another Diabetic Living recipe from the Winter 2009 issue. The salad was our own concoction.

Mediterranean Pork Chops
4 boneless or bone-in pork loin chops, cut 1/2 inch thick (1 - 1/2 pounds total)
1 tablespoon finely snipped fresh rosemary or 1 teaspoon dried, crushed
3 cloves garlic, minced

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Sprinkle all side of chops with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. In a small bowl, combine rosemary and garlic. Sprinkle rosemary mixture evenly over all sides of the chops; rub in with your fingers. (Please remember to wash your hands thoroughly after doing this)

2. Place chops on a rack in a shallow roasting pan*. Roast chops 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F and continue roasting about 25 minutes or until no pink remains (160 degrees) and juices run clear.

*We used just a glass 9x13 dish. It worked just fine.

Spinach Strawberry Salad
*These are odd amounts - we just used what we had on hand
1/2 head spinach, washed and torn apart
8 strawberries - cleaned and sliced
1/4 cup chopped pecans
8 oz. Feta cheese, crumbled

Toss ingredients together in a large bowl. Add your favorite sweeter vinaigrette dressing and toss again. I will try to add the recipe we used, but since it was made without being written down, I don't know how accurate it will be.

Hope you enjoy dinner!