Pear Salad and Chicken Aux Oignons, si'l te plait!

So, there's been a lot of chicken, right? I've decided to venture out into some other courses---salads, sandwiches, wraps, sides...

There are so many things you can do with wraps and sandwiches, and the possibilities of salads are endless. I think that if you make the taste and texture interesting, salads become thought of something other than the limp dried out lettuce and boring vegetables offered at a salad bar.

We are both being very careful about what we are eating because of our upcoming wedding, and it has paid off. We both have been exercising everyday and eating healthfully!

Friday night, we had a Fresh Pear Salad that I modified from a recipe that was in Kosher Delicious because there was no way to make the Fresh Pear and Plum Salad---I am allergic to fresh plums, and well, I haven't exactly been able to find canned plums! So basically, I took butter lettuce (baby arugula would work, too) and placed two halves of a pear (cut into four pieces total) on top of the salad. The dressing was home made, too! And we fell in love.


Without exact proportions, the dressing (does homemade dressing count as a separate recipe?) consisted of olive oil, white vinegar, dijon mustard, orange juice, honey and chipped chopped shallots (if you catch my reference...;-))

This salad recipe is something that I would bring to a picnic, barbeque, baby shower, wedding shower...etc, basically, it is good enough to share with others.


For dinner, I made Chicken Aux Oignons. In one of my first blog posts, I referenced this recipe and boy, was it tasty! A French recipe, this chicken dish was made solely on stove-top and still came out tasting like roasted chicken. This was delicious. A contender for my next blog cooking party extravaganza.

I then attempted to make Lime-infused Quinoa. The lime part was fine, but then I decided "it needs more citrus, lets add some lemon juice!"---big idea, big mistake. I then soaked the quinoa in chicken broth to help counteract the flavor, no go. I added about 1tsp of mint leaves, and stirred. I might try to remedy this and just add 1tbsp of lime juice for each 1/2c of quinoa. Dan still ate it and had seconds, so I wondering about his eating judgment...;-).

I stepped it up a notch this week and we're having some fun things! I'm excited to cook in Pittsburgh this weekend! Oh, by the way, Mom, I'll make the side dishes for Friday night's dinner, just a heads up!


Bon appetit!