Southwest Salad

We like eating chicken salads at our place. Anything cool and filling is good food 10 months out of the year. Our normal chicken salad includes:

• red leaf lettuce
• chicken
• tomato
• cheese
• diced canned peaches
• craisins
• canned mandarine oranges
• and any other vegetable we might have in the house (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, …)

I decided to mix it up a little last week. We had some leftover black beans and I decided we’d have a southwest salad. We used:

• red leaf lettuce
• chicken
• tomato
• cheese
• black beans
• corn

And then I was hoping to find a southwest style salad dressing, like a creamy tomatillo or something. And I couldn’t find any. So I decided we could make our own. I pulled up the “Creamy J” recipe my sister and brother put together:

• 8 oz cream cheese
• 16 oz sour cream (or plain yogurt)
• diced/minced garlic
• cilantro (about half a bunch from the grocery store)
• dash of milk to help with the mixing
• 3-5 jalapeños – remove the tops, veins, and seeds (I put the seeds of half of one in to give it just a bit more kick, put more seeds in if you want more kick. I also always wear disposable latex gloves when I’m working with jalapeños because I got a burn from them once when I didn’t. If I have contacts I always switch to glasses before working with them too, just in case.)

Mixed all that together in the blender and that made a great jalapeño dip. Then to make it a dressing I reserved most of it to keep as a dip and then with the rest I added even more milk to make it more dressing than dip. And we drizzled that over the salad.

And the verdict?

Very tasty, although I think the dressing maybe had too much milk to water it down with. Thicker dressing might have been preferred. Also, it is very healthy.

In other news, we had this conversation at our place last night as I was making sure I had all the video clips I’d need for class today (there are a lot for this chapter):

Me: This is the chapter I get to show Grover for.
Brett: Why do you show Grover?
Me: Because I show Old Spice Guy.
Brett: And Grover?
Me: Because I’m the teacher.
Brett: 😆