I made the best chicken salad today, it included chopped white meat chicken, celery, onions, carrot shreds, sliced green olives with pimento and sprinkled on top with toasted sesame seeds, black pepper and flakes of kelp. I even added a few tablespoons of cooked brown lentils for fiber.
I used my copycat recipe for Applebee’s Oriental Dressing:
3 tbsp honey
1.5 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup mayo
1 tsp grey poupon
1/8 tsp sesame oil
Tofu shawarma on lightly toasted sourdough with mayo, alfalfa sprouts, shredded carrots and a roasted sweet potato spread. A tasty combination. It’s not an actual shawarma, I simply shaved the slices super thin by hand, sprayed with soy sauce and drizzle of sesame oil, laid it out roughly and kinda curly on a sprayed baking sheet. Sprinkled the top with a little chicken powder mixed with paprika, garlic powder, red pepper. Spray the top with oil then 425°f for maybe 10-15 mins. Not too long, you don’t want them crispy, you want them floppy.
Tonight’s dinner was a copycat Rice-A-Roni recipe with added collard greens, chicken breast, white pepper and lentils. Here’s the copycat recipe:
2 tbsp olive oil
1/3 cup angel hair pasta broken into small pieces
1 cup triple washed long-grain white rice
1-3/4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 tsp chicken powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
Forget avocado toast, spicy lentil toast is the deal. I can’t believe how good this is. I cooked myself 2 over easy eggs and put some of my cooked lentils in the bowl. I was going to use a piece of rosemary olive sourdough toast (with Earth Balance spread) to pick it up with. The combination of egg topped with lentils that had been cooked in spices with fresh tomatoes, peas and carrots, holy basil, turnip greens, sliced garlic cloves, cumin, cinnamon, ground ginger, cardamon, fenugreek was spectacular. The egg yolk gave it the perfect umami. Give it a good black pepper shake. I ended up smashing it all together and spreading it on the toast. I will totally do that again.
During the pandemic lockdown in 2020 when dining out days were on hold, I learned from YouTube how to make all my fave Thai, Vietnamese and Cantonese dishes. I was surprised that all I needed was a few ingredients to keep on hand and almost everything was made from that handful of condiments.
A BASIC FAVE STIRFRY SAUCE1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1/2 cup low-sodium broth or water
1/2 tsp teaspoon sesame oil
1 tbsp white vinegar
1 tsp grated ginger or 1/2 tsp ginger powder
1 tbsp sugar or honey
Pinch of white pepper
Pinch of cayenne
Recently I had my best/only brown lentil success EVER with ideal texture. I cooked brown lentils in the rice cooker and added one teaspoon chicken powder, a couple shakes of dried parsley, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, a quarter cup of chopped carrots, a shake of powdered ginger, shake of cinnamon and splash of apple cider vinegar, then 1/4 cup of green peas added the last 10 minutes for color.
The ratio I use for cooking lentils is the same as for rice: 1 cup lentils to 2 cups water. I set it to cook which it does for like 20 minutes and I left the lid on for another 20 minutes afterwards. It’s the absolute perfect al dente texture.
Ok some rices I do 1 cup rice to 1.5 cups water.