It’s that time again! The time we have all been anxiously awaiting. Thursday’s episode of Craving Ellie. We have a creative group of cooks who enjoy cooking together in “blog land” once a week using the same recipe from Ellie Krieger’s book “The Food You Crave”.
This week’s recipe was chosen by AJM of You Eat Now. What a great choice she made. Both of us here at Apple Crumbles thoroughly enjoyed our meal. For the complete recipe, go to AJM’s blog, linked above and find out exactly how to create this tasty dish. But… don’t go away… since you’re here, please see what happened in our kitchen from chopping block, to oven, to mouth.
Step 1: Make the Blue Cheese Dressing.
The dressing was made Wednesday morning. One less item to prepare at dinner time. It was very easy to make. The ingredients used were:
- 1/4 cup nonfat, plain yogurt – allowed to drain on paper towel in fridge for one hour.
- 1/4 cup soy milk with 1 tsp lemon juice (no buttermilk)
- 1 TBS white wine vinegar
- 1/4 tsp sugar (recipe called for 1/2)
- 3 1/2 oz Gorgonzola cheese (recipe called for 1/3 cup Blue Cheese however, Gorgonzola was what we had in the fridge.)
- Salt and pepper to taste.
The mayonnaise was omitted. It didn’t seem necessary. More Gorgonzola was added because, upon tasting, the cheese flavor was hardly detectable.
Step 2: The Salad
- 1 heart of romaine lettuce
- 4 stalks celery
- Enough baby carrots to grate and finish with 1 cup. Note to Self… BUY grated carrots next time! Hate grating ANYTHING! Can’t stand cleaning the grater. Ted said “What do you mean?! I clean the grater!”
- 1/2 each green and red bell peppers, chopped (needed some color in the salad)
- 2 scallions – using only the green part. Save the lower end for another use. Don’t be wasteful! 😉
You are reading the post of the world’s most renowned salad Queen. I love salad. This meal had a place in my heart just because of that wonderful word in the title. In order to make the salad a little more colorful, a green and red pepper were added. They provided a little extra flavor as well.
Step 3: The Chicken and the “Quorn” (Quorn is a meatless, soyless protein source).
- 1 1/2 lb chicken breasts (skinned and boned)
- VEGETARIAN: 1 bag of “Quorn” Chik’n Tenders.
- 1 TBS Frank’s Red Hot – Xtra Hot Sauce for Ted’s chicken
- 1 1/2 TBS Frank’s Red Hot – Xtra Hot Sauce for Joanne’s Quorn
- 2 tsp Olive oil to each hot sauce portion.
Ted pounded his own chicken. The Quorn simply needed to be mixed up with the sauce and oil as it came cubed. Ted wanted his picture taken while pounding the chicken. I refused. It just wasn’t time for him to make stardom.
Step 4: Putting it all together.
The salad was easy to prepare. The chicken cooked in the time specified – to perfection. We plated the salad, topped the greens with our proteins, drizzled some Blue Cheese Dressing on the meat (and the “meatless”), put some on the side with extra celery, and served our meals with squash patties (see last nights post). It was excellent. Ted’s words were “Fun to eat. It has lots of crunch and lots of flavor”.
Thanks AJM for a great choice.
The peppers were a great idea. I wish I had thought of that, as I have some in the fridge. Oh well…next time, for sure. I love salad, too! Yours looks delicious. And personally, I don’t think you can ever go wrong with extra cheese.
What a funny post! I love that Ted wanted the beginning of his 15 minutes of fame while pounding chicken. I bought shredded carrots for something else so I had them in the fridge and I used them. I am in 100% agreement with you on shredding carrots, I hate to do it! Your salad looks beautiful and delicious!
Yours looks so good. I had every intention of making this last night but I was overwhelmed last night with work. Maybe I’ll make it tonight. I’m glad to hear you substituted a cheese because I hate blue.
Drool! This looks amazing! I love anything buffalo and definitely need to give this a try!
Your salad looks great! I thought this was a fabulous recipe and will definitley be making it again. I agree with you on the dressing — more cheese was definitely the way to go.
Both versions look great! I also added extra cheese to my dressing.
We also really liked this. We don’t usually do “dinner salads” with the rare exception of a grilled chicken/fish Caesar salad, but this one will have a home in the rotation from now on.
I love those reviews of Ellie’s cookbook. I still have to cook from it.
I loved this salad too! If Ted pounded the chicken, he should get his stardom. I hate pounding chicken!
It seems everyone loved this recipe. Great! As for Ted, Okay… next time he gets his picture if meat pounding is required.
Great looking salad! We loved ours! I bet the gorgonzola was yummy!!
I loved your Quorn substitution. This was so flavorful, the missing chicken flavor would not be a big deal. Next time I’ll try that, or tofu, or squash patties.