Recipe: Mexican Pulled Chicken

What to do with chicken leftovers?  After grilling, we often have a lot of extra chicken, and while I like it hot off the grill, I tend to scorn the leftovers.  Until now, chicken salad was our go-to solution for leftover chicken, but I was looking for something new, and a bit healthier.  A little searching around yielded a recipe for Mexican Pulled Chicken.  The original recipe calls for uncooked chicken to be simmered with onions, cumin, chili powder, soup stock, and salsa, then removed, pulled, and added back to the pot.  It is just as easy to introduce the chicken at the post-pulling step, which has the additional benefit of making the total cooking time shorter.  The salsa you choose will greatly affect the flavor of the dish, so pick a good one!  I used a corn and bean salsa, and ate Mexican Pulled Chicken wraps all week for a quick lunch or dinner.  This recipe is Kosher, but for some delicious treyf, sprinkle on some cheese.

Garden update: One out of four pepper plants (the orangsicle variety) has four little peppers growing, two out of seven tomato plants (cherry and lemon boy) have tiny tomatoes, and one out of six eggplants has a small whitish purple fruit growing.  The cilantro (aka coriander) I planted in early april is blossoming, and hopefully I will be able to harvest the seeds soon!

Cilantro in bloom

Pretty little flowers, do your thing!

You’re a Waldorf salad!*

I love a good, hearty salad, especially as it heats up outside.  The problem is all the time it takes to prepare the fixins and all the space it takes to store the inevitable unused portions.  So it is a treat to go out to a good salad bar, where I can mix and match to my heart’s content.  Right now, my favorite place for doing this is Ruby Tuesday’s.  There’s nothing like a spinach, egg, tomato, chickpea, black olive, sun-dried tomato, crumbled feta, and dried cranberry salad with a balsamic vinaigrette or blue cheese dressing.  What's your favorite salad combination, and where’s you’re favorite place to get it?

Speaking of delicious fixins, I am more than ready for fresh garden tomatoes!  We have seven plants this year, all with little yellow flowers, so I am hopeful to get a good turn out this year.

*Do you recognize this line?  It’s from You’re the Top, by Cole Porter, from Anything Goes (here's a fun explanation of some of the references in the song).  I heard it on the way to the restaurant, and I ended up having some Waldorf Salad during dinner.  How appropriate!