You’re in a hurry! Running late, maybe even stuck in traffic. What’s for dinner? With one quick stop to the grocery store, or better yet—the farmer’s market, you can have everything in one bag to make this tempting sandwich.

We love this one. Seriously. L. O. V. E. It’s cool and refreshing with zero cooking involved, so that makes it great for hot summer evenings when you can’t even think of turning on the oven. What’s so great about it? Well, aside from being delicious and loaded with vegetables, it’s also crunchy, cool, and satisfying. I think it would be great with some grilled chicken tucked in there, too. And now that we can actually see the grill out there in the yard, it’s a perfect time to try that option out. We’ve been enjoying this all winter long. Yes, really! With bagged spinach, Campari Tomatoes or vine ripened, and an English Cucumber—you know the ones, all wrapped up in plastic—this still tastes like a fresh summer sandwich.

Have you guys tried the Campari tomatoes? They’re the closest I've found to garden fresh. They’re sweet and so good. I think I’ll have to do a side by side when we start getting garden tomatoes this summer. Anyway, they’re a bit pricier than the pink, bland “other” tomatoes, but they’re well worth it.

I found this recipe a while back at MyRecipes.com. If you haven’t checked this site out yet, you should. It’s packed with great recipes and tips! Whether you want quick recipes, diet friendly, budget, or party recipes and more, you can find them there. The MyRecipes.com network has recipes from some of your favorite magazines:

• Cooking Light
• Coastal Living
• Cottage Living
• Health
• MyHomeIdeas
• Real Simple
• Southern Accents
• Southern Living
• Sunset

Just look at all of those resources, right at your fingertips! So check them out!

You can find the recipe for the sandwich here: Greek Sandwich with Feta Vinaigrette. The only thing I do differently is to use fresh spinach instead of arugula. And do make the dressing to taste—a reviewer said she thought it was a bit lemony, so she added extra oil. It’s all to taste, right?

One side note—we like to really pack the salad into the sandwiches. I know, oink, right? But it’s salad! Can’t fault me for that, hehe. So it can get a little messy. Serve with a fork for picking up the salad that is going to fall out in your plate. And if you’re serving it to guests, make sure they’re people you’re not trying to impress with your graceful eating habits. This sandwich is good. Really good. And worth getting a little messy over.

If any of you decide to try it, please let me know how you liked it, and also let me know if you try it with chicken! One more thing! The dressing and salad make a wonderful side salad on their own, or even with some chicken added for a main dish meal.

My friend Grace at A Southern Grace is having a blog event called Beat the Heat. She wants recipes that won't heat up the kitchen during the hot months of summer. (And even though it's only 61° here today--that's fall weather!) And her rules say we can submit new stuff, or things we've already blogged about. I did have a recipe all picked out to make, but we have some guys working at the house, fixing insulation until Friday. So I'm stuck here and can't get to the store. And it's raining. And I have four kids. And it's supposed to rain tomorrow, too. Help. Me.



So I chose two recipes that I originally posted back in March. Did it matter that it wasn't hot out then? No way, because they're good all year 'round. But if tomatoes aren't in season in your area, do yourself a favor and spring for the pretty vine ripened ones. The recipes compliment each other so well, and if you add a couple more things to your plate, you've got a delicious and healthy feast. These are a favorite when you don't feel like heating up the kitchen, or even if you don't feel like cooking. The prep for these is easy--a bit chopping for the salad, and the hummus is all made in the food processor. Add some feta, pita wedges, and good olives if you've got them, and you have a heavenly snack or meal.

You can find the post for the Fresh Summer Salad here.



And the Roasted Red Pepper Hummus post is here.



Put them together and you get something like this:


It's a nice light, but filling combination. And that salad is so good! It's like a bowl of summer, hehe.

So that's my entry to Beat the Heat. And even though it's cool out today, I'm adding this stuff to my grocery list. If I can ever get out to the store...

Neither do I. I was hoping some of you might. At least it's cooler today! We're currently at 74°, which is fine by me. We'll still be getting some warmer than usual weather later in the week, but for now, I'm totally enjoying this. It was so hot last night that I didn't even cook anything. We had roasted red pepper hummus and summer salad with whole wheat pitas and feta. So good, and no heating up the kitchen!


I've got a couple of recipes to share today. One is for a most delicious salad, created by Jerry at Cooking by the Seat of my Pants. You should check out his blog--he has great food to drool over. Jerry came up with this recipe for the Royal Foodie Joust sponsored by Jenn, The Leftover Queen, at the Foodie Blogroll. Please check her blog out, too, and if you haven't joined the blogroll yet, have a look around!



Since I won the previous joust, I got to pick the three required ingredients for this one, and those were...surprise! raspberry, lime and almonds. The jousters came up with such great recipes to feed my addiction, hehe. (It's almost like I had minions catering to my raspberry and lime whims!) I had to try the salad, not only because it looked delicious and had my favorite things in it, but because it's got my name on it! I think if something's named after you, it's a given--you've got to make it. It's so good! And will be a regular around here this summer. The dressing is tangy and not too sweet, the chicken is tender and nicely flavored, and all the extras in it come together to make one great meal. I couldn't find any sliced almonds at the store, so I used pecans--also delicious. The vinaigrette is like any dressing, to taste--I ended up adding a bit more raspberry jam (Trader Joe's low sugar jam) and lime juice. Actually, I just about doubled it so we'd be sure to have enough. I also added some fresh raspberries to the salad.



This one's definitely going to be on the menu again soon, and I hope you'll all check it out!
Almost forgot to link to the salad! D'oh! La Salade d'Elle (Chicken Salad with Almonds, Queso Fresco, and Raspberry Lime Vinaigrette.)

Next recipe! I must warn you, these pictures you're about to see aren't pretty. But! It won't matter because the food is so freaking good! It's typical baseball park, tailgating, or street food. So funny, because it's such a simple thing to make, but for me, it's such a treat. I'm like a little kid when we have these. So is my husband! He's happy when we have this. It's easy to feed a crowd with these, too, or cut back and make a smaller batch if you like. You can do these in the house, as I've done here, or on the grill, with a pan so you don't lose stuff to the coals. Either way, it's goooood eating!

Sausage, Peppers and Onions

For this batch, I used Sweet Italian Sausage, ten of them. They were on sale, what can I say? Normally I don't make ten at a time, but they're still so, so good the next day. I used three red bell peppers--use whatever color peppers you want, and two longish light green peppers. No idea what they were, but they were sweet, not spicy. I also used two large sweet onions, and about seven or eight cloves of garlic.


10 Sweet (or hot, if you like) Italian Sausage; you could also use chicken or turkey sausages
5 sweet bell peppers, any color, sliced into long strips
2 large sweet onions, sliced
7 cloves garlic, minced
vinegar (I usually use white wine vinegar, but use whatever kind you have)
fresh cracked black pepper and salt if you taste and think it needs some
sandwich rolls
yellow mustard (you can use spicy mustard if you want, but the best way to enjoy these is with good old yellow mustard)


In a large pan on medium heat, brown the sausages, about 3 minutes on each side, for a total of about 12 minutes.
Remove from pan and set aside to cool a bit, drain most of the oil from the pan.
Add the peppers, onions, and garlic, and saute until they get soft, but don't brown them too much. Stir them around occasionally for even cooking. You can add a little olive oil if you need to.

Just look at those gorgeous colors and those delicious chickpeas!

I love chickpeas. I really do. They make the most delicious hummus, they're wonderful roasted in the oven for a great snack, and they go well in so many things, like stews, salads, and chili. And over at Vicarious Foodie, they're starring in Spaghetti alla Ceci! That looks amazing, doesn't it? If you haven't tried them yet, you should grab a can the next time you're out shopping. Try them--they're not mushy, like beans--they have a nice texture and an earthy, slightly nutty flavor.

Here are a few facts on chickpeas, as seen on FoodReference.com.

__________________________________________________________________________

CHICKPEA

Chick pea and garbanzo bean are 2 names for the same thing (Cicer arietinum) a member of the Pea family (Fabaceae). They are also called ceci (Italy), Egyptian pea, gram, Kichererbse (Germany), and revithia (Greece).

Garbanzo is the name used in Spanish speaking countries. The English name chickpea comes from the French chiche, which comes from the Latin cicer.

Garbanzo Beans or chickpeas are the most widely consumed legume in the world. Originating in the Middle East, they have a firm texture with a flavor somewhere between chestnuts and walnuts. Garbanzo beans are usually pale yellow in color. In India there are red, black, and brown chickpeas.

Chickpeas or garbanzo beans have 361 calories per 100g, and are rich in carbohydrates, proteins, phosphorus, calcium and iron.

___________________________________________________________________

This brings me to today's recipe. It's Tuna Orzo Salad, which happens to be a Rachael Ray recipe. Now, I'm not a huge fan of her recipes or her shows, but I do love her magazine. It's full of great ideas and articles, and guest authors that also have wonderful ideas and recipes. This one is from her magazine, and we love it. It's makes a wonderful lunch or light dinner.

It's such a pretty salad, too, with all of the jewel tones from the ingredients. There's the purple shade of the red onions, the juicy orange (or red or yellow) peppers, the green basil, the cherry red grape tomatoes, and of course, the silky chickpeas.



I've actually had this recipe photographed and ready to go for a while, but you guys know how it it is--you photograph so much stuff, then you have all these things ready to post, and not enough time to post them all. And besides, it's in the stars today, with Vicarious Foodie showcasing chickpeas, and with Deborah at Taste and Tell in day 5 of her 7 Days with Rachael Ray series. Whether you like RR or not, she does have a lot of good, basic ideas that can be tweaked and added to. For this particular recipe, I don't change a thing, except for drizzling some white balsamic vinegar over our salad.

Tuna Orzo Salad

3 c chicken broth
1 cup orzo
1/4 c red wine vinegar
salt and pepper
2 (6 oz) cans olive oil packed tuna, drained and oil reserved
1 (15 oz) can chickpeas, drained
1 cup grape tomatoes, sliced in half
1 yellow or red bell pepper, diced
half a red onion, finely diced
1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
1/2 c crumbled feta cheese
white balsamic vinegar, for drizzling over

Bring the broth to a boil in a saucepan and add the orzo. Cook until al dente, then drain and cool slightly.
In a large bowl, season the vinegar with salt and pepper and mix until the salt dissolves.
Whisk in the reserved oil from the tuna, then add the orzo and toss to mix.
Add the chickpeas, tomatoes, peppers, onion, onion and basil to the orzo mixture.
Break up the tuna and add that and the feta to the salad, then serve.
Top with a light drizzle of balsamic vinegar.

This salad is one of the easiest things to make, ever. It's amazing to me (Yes, still. I'm terribly easy to please.) how you can take a few simple, common ingredients, and turn them into something that tastes so incredibly good.

That's what this salad is. I made it the other day, and not for the first time, I've made it plenty of times--and my husband and I stood at the kitchen island almost inhaling it like we had been wandering in the desert without food for two weeks. He had picked up a soft, squishy loaf of fresh italian bread earlier in the day, and we were ripping off hunks of bread like savages and eating them with the salad. And by the way...there's a lot to be said for eating something like this with the one you love. It's drippy with olive oil and juice from the tomatoes...embarrassing to have oil dripping down your chin? No--just the opposite--it's a very sensual eating experience...and what were we talking about? hehehe.

Serve this with any number of things--it's so versatile! It's great with the hummus (ous) and some feta on wedges of pita bread, or as a fresh side dish, or, like my husband and I had some of it, right out of the bowl you made it in along with some fresh bread. I found this recipe online somewhere years ago, but it's been so long that I don't remember where. Thank you, whoever you are! oh, and even if you don't have garden tomatoes, which we don't have yet, obviously--it's SO worth splurging on a few vine ripened tomatoes from your grocery store to make this. It's a burst of summer while it's still...let me check...43 degrees outside, with snow on the ground.

Fresh Summer Salad

4 cucumbers, peeled or not, up to you--seeded and cut into chunks
4 tomatoes, seeded or deglopped, as my friend Jane says, and cut into chunks
1/2 cup fresh parsley, roughly chopped
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
3-4 TBSP olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp coarsely ground pepper

Toss all ingredients together and chill. Or don't bother to put it away, just stand there with some bread and eat. Store any leftovers in the fridge.


And here it is with some of the Roasted Red Pepper Hummus, some feta and some pita bread wedges:

This salad is one of our favorites. It's easy to make, and bonus! you can make the components ahead of time. That's always a plus for me! It also makes it a good choice if you're having friends over, because you can just assemble the salads right before you serve them. But please, be nice and rip the greens into small enough pieces so you don't have to watch each other trying to shovel huge pieces of lettuce into your mouths. It's not easy to look graceful while eating a salad, but with a simple step, you can avoid embarrassment, lol. And dressing all over your face. So here we go...

Chicken Caesar Salad

• Dressing:
• 10 TB olive oil
• 4 large egg yolks (or about 4 TB egg beaters)
• 2 TB lemon juice
• 2 TB white wine vinegar
• 2 tsp worcestershire sauce
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp minced anchovy fillet
• For the dressing, whisk all ingredients together, and you’re done with that step. Now get started with the croutons...

• Croutons:
• 1 loaf Italian bread, cut in ¾-inch cubes (about 4 cups)
• olive oil
• coarse salt and ground pepper

1. For the croutons, heat the oven to 375.
2. Place the bread cubes on a rimmed baking sheet, drizzle with some olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper, then toss to coat.
3. Bake about 12-15 minutes, until golden brown, tossing halfway through cooking if needed.
4. Set aside, and they should look like this:

Now, for the chicken:

I always fillet chicken breasts. They cook faster, so they don't have time to dry out. Well, I suppose they could, if you really try to overcook them, but they only need a few minutes per side. If they're thin, 2-3 minutes per side is good, and if they're thicker, like the kind you get from "new and improved" mutant-sized chickens, they take about 5-6 minutes per side. And it's so easy to fillet them, too! Just put your chicken on a cutting board, get a good sharp fillet knife, and place your palm over the chicken breast, like the way you're supposed to cut a bagel but no one ever does? "Hello? 911? Bagel emergency! But please stop off first and get me a new bagel...I seem to have ruined this one..." So you've put your palm over the top, and then you slice the breast horizontally from the thick end of the breast, to the thin one. See? Easy, and injury free!

1. For the chicken, fillet each breast for fast and even cooking. Trust me, they're better this way, and the chicken cooks so quickly that it doesn't have time to dry out.
2. So you've filleted each breast, right? Now sprinkle each side of the chicken with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Don't overdo, it, just enough to season the chicken.
3. Heat your skillet to about medium high, and drizzle a little olive oil in the pan.
4. Add the chicken and cook on one side for 3 minutes, then turn them and cook for 3-4 minutes, until golden and no longer pink. (You've filleted them, so they won't take longer than this to cook.)

1. Place the cooked chicken on a cutting board and let rest for 5 minutes, then slice each piece into strips.

1. Assemble the salads:
2. Put the lettuce in the 4 plates, next put the chicken, then drizzle with dressing. Sprinkle with croutons and parmesan cheese.

And that's it, you're done! Simple, right? Next time, we'll try shrimp, and see how that goes. How bad could it be? Shrimp makes everything better!





For a printable version of this recipe, click here.

Alright, so this is probably isn't authentic Asian chicken salad, but it's got good Asian flavors in it. There's sesame oil, ginger, soy sauce, water chestnuts and lots of other Asian style goodness. I had a wrap a couple weeks ago from a deli with salad like this in it, and I finally had a chance to try it out this weekend and get it down on paper. Well, not really paper. If we went 10 years in to the past, it would be paper, but not anymore. I've got my trusty lap top in the kitchen, so I got it down in a word document, lol. Ahhh, technology. I don't have a recipe box crammed with loose clippings of paper anymore. I've replaced that box with e mail accounts crammed with saved recipes and web links! Much more organized, right? *insert rolling eyes here*

So here's the recipe and a photo. Be nice, I'm still learning the whole digital photography thing. My husband bought me a really great (and expensive, but that's another story) camera a few months back, and he says I need to use it more, or else! hahaha.


Asian Chicken Salad


I had an Asian chicken wrap sandwich the other day that inspired this recipe. It's delicious! And not too bad for you, there's only 1/4 cup of mayo in it. These are the measurements I used, but as with any chicken salad, everyone has their favorite ways and different tastes, so use these as a guideline, and add more if you like. Try having this in a wrap with fresh spinach leaves, and take it from there--use your imagination.

Prep:10 minutes
Servings:4


Ingredients

* 1 whole boneless chicken breast, cooked and cubed
* 1/4 cup pineapple pieces (canned, in juice), drained
* 2 TB dried cranberries
* 1 tsp soy sauce
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 1/4 tsp pepper
* 1/2 tsp sesame oil
* 1/8 tsp ground ginger
* 1/8 tsp garlic powder
* 1/4 cup chopped water chestnuts
* 1/4 cup grated carrot
* 2 green onions, sliced
* 1/4 cup mayonnaise


Directions

1. In a medium bowl, toss all ingredients in and mix well.
2. That's it, you're done!


For a printable version of this recipe, click here.