TLT Salad

Thanks for letting me know this post disappeared Claudia, here it is again :)

I started this week's challenge a little negatively. I'm not sure I've ever followed a recipe for a salad before. Sure, I take tips on ingredients, but no measuring, no real direction following occurs when I make a salad.

This salad went something like this.

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Throw it all in a bowl:

Toss with dressing, top with croutons and serve:

Okay, I skipped over the two things that actually took me any time in this recipe. The lovely dressing, simply mayo, basil & white wine vinegar. The homemade croutons. This is something my mother has perfected. Always made with stale bread, many seasonings and several glugs of oil. These were not those croutons. When I picked up the bread at the grocery store it was so fresh it was still warm. This made for a slight chew to the middle of the little bread cubes, which was actually quite nice.

The moment I ate this salad any lingering thoughts of "who needs a recipe for a salad?" disappeared. This salad is delicious. I don't know if it was the bacon or the dressing, but it was definitely one of the two. Having given up red meat for unknown reasons far too long ago to remember I often miss out on that bacon salad combo. This recipe called for turkey bacon, which added a lovely crunchy salt to this salad.

We paired this with some grilled fish for dinner, but that wasn't necessary - this could have been an entree all by itself.

TLT (The Larry T) Salad
Adapted from "Bite Me"
makes: 6 servings

Ingredients

Croutons

1/2 mini baguette, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 T olive oil
1/4 c Parmesan cheese
1 tsp kosher salt
Creamy Basil Dressing
1/4 c light mayonnaise

1 T finely chopped fresh basil

1 T white wine vinegar

Salad

1 romaine heart, coarsely chopped or torn into bite-size pieces

1 c cherry tomatoes, halved

4 slices turkey bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled

1 avocado peeled and chopped

1. For the croutons, preheat the oven to 350F. Coat a baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray. In a large bowl, toss bread crumbs with olive oil. Add Parmesan and salt, tossing to coat. Spread pieces on baking sheet and bake 15 minutes, stirring every 5.
2. For the dressing, in a small bowl, whisk mayo, basil and vinegar.
3. In a large bowl combine the salad ingredients.
4. Add dressing, toss to coat. Top with croutons.

Crunchy Tortilla Chicken with Avocado Dip

So the Baking Beauties are no longer baking. Sort of makes the title of this blog a little odd, but I'll get over it. We've moved on to the wonderful cookbook "Bite Me". I don't know how I'm going to stop myself from cooking from this every day. All the recipes look ah-maze-ing.

This week's challenge is "Crunchy Tortilla Chicken with Avocado Dip".

I only used two chicken breasts, since there are only two of us and not six. I only halved the rest of the recipe though, since it's a little easier on my brain.

Marinade tasted good all by itself. It would have made a lovely chip dip.

While that was marinating I made the breading. Since I don't have a proper food processor this is how I crush the tortilla chips.

This is the first breading I've ever done that involved jalapenos and cheddar. I'm pretty sure it won't be the last. However, I did feel a little weird doing this:

When this was looking at me from the window:

I didn't want to improvise too much on the first recipe, so jarred peppers it was. Here are all the ingredients together for the breading:

That previously mentioned lack of a proper food processor? Became a bit of a problem when the instructions for the avocado dip include the words "food processor". I have this little hand held one, and it mostly did the trick. We just had a few giant chunks of avocado within the dip. Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

Finished result:

I loved it, and so did Craig. It did have many of his favourite things in it: jalapeños, nacho chips & cheese.

Crunchy Tortilla Chicken with Avocado Dip

adapted from Bite Me

Ingredients

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts

3/4 c sour cream

1 T brown sugar

1 t chili powder

1/2 t chopped fresh thyme

1/2 t kosher salt

1/4 t fresh ground black epper

1/4 t garlic powder

1 c Panko bread crumbs

1 c crushed tortilla chips

1/2 c shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 c jarred jalapeño peppers, dried off and chopped

Avocado Dip

1/2 c mayonnaise

1/2 c sour cream

2 ripe avocados, pitted and peeled

2 T fresh lime juice

1/4 t ground cumin

1/4 t cayenne pepper

1/2 t kosher salt

1/4 t freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. Pound chicken breasts to even thickness, about 1/2 inch thick

2. In a large cowl combine sour cream, brown sugar, chili powder, thyme, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Add chicken, toss to coat, cover and marinate in the fridge for 2 hours.

3. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with foil and coat with non-stick cooking spray.

4. In a large bowl combine the remaining ingredients (minus the avocado dip). remove chicken from marinade and coat each piece with the breading mixture, pressing down so that it coats each piece well. Place on baking sheet and bake 20-23 minutes.

5. For the avocado dip combine the listed ingredients in a food processor. Blend until smooth, about 30 seconds. Serve alongside chicken.

Serves two, albeit with a lot of extra dip.