Bulgur and Chickpea Salad w/ Parsley Dressing, pg. 133

WoW.....I really need to start making my own salad dressings!  I continuously pay $4 a bottle at Whole Foods and Lorna's parsley lemon dressing cost less than $1 to make.  The only thing I had to buy was a lemon.  The parsley on my deck is growing out of control so this was perfect recipe to make this week.

In less than 5 minutes, I blended the dressing: olive oil + lemon juice + parsley + yogurt + cayenne + salt.  I'm not a lemon fan so the flavor was a bit strong for me, however, by no means was I dissappointed. When the dressing was mixed with the bulgur, chickpeas, cucumber, onions and tomatoes, the result was a tangy tasty blend. Ben gave this recipe a 3.3/5 Grains.  When asked what he would change, Ben said he didn't care!  That means he liked it!      

Since this was the first dressing I've made, I've since been researching other recipes.  Check out Cheap, Healthy, Good's Blog. They posted 102 light dressing recipes.  A pretty cool resource!   -amy

Wheat Berry Salad with Apples and Mint...

Amy reviewed this recipe back in April which you can check out here.  She loved the recipe and Ben did too, so I'm sad to report I didn't feel the same way.  I am willing to try it again and here's why. My dressing was the whole problem. It didn't emulsify well, and stayed too runny. I used the mint I recently starting growing in my garden, but have only cooked with this one time. And, I didn't use fresh squeezed orange juice. So, I'm hoping the "medicinal" flavor I experienced was more a result of these errors than the actual recipe, because I really want to love it!  Here's hoping 2nd time around will be better, and I will surely let you know :)

Tonight I cooked up some Sweet Onion Risotto (using my first ever batch of homemade chicken stock!!!) and enjoyed it al fresco on our front porch with some Crispy Kale "chips"... my favorite way to chew on the curly, leafy greens.  I have yet to figure out the perfect cooking time and temp for the chips to come out crispy and yet not burned, but this will get you pretty close and it's so simple.  Preheat oven to 400 F, tear the leaves of your Kale into pieces, toss in olive oil & bake them on a sheet pan for about 6-8 minutes, then toss with a little salt or seasoning salt.  Enjoy! -Vicki

Kamut Chicken Salad-pg. 135

I opened an email from Karen, Director of Advertising  for Graingirls.com and she wrote, "Amy, Lorna Sass posted on your website. That's so great!" My first thought was that Karen was playing a joke on the two of us. That was not the case, Lorna Sass REALLY did post on our blog! I told Mr. Ben that he better watch out!

So back to the recipe that recieved a large makeover! With the two of us being olive haters, I had to get creative and substitute. In place of black and green olives, I roasted asparagus and added grapes + cranberries. The original dressing consisted of fresh squeezed lemon juice and olive oil. Since I don't like lemon flavor, I found some balsamic in my fridge and mixed that with a bit of sugar. I added whole wheat tortillas and shredded cheese to make this more of a chicken salad wrap. I know we are trying to eat healthy here BUT I  fried up some sweet potato french fries to compliment the wrap!

Ben gave it 4/5 grains up! This salad made delicious leftovers for lunch! -amy


I was so nervous this morning when I packed this salad into a couple containers to take it to work with me for a luncheon we were having at the Jewelry Store I work at.  I tasted the chicken mixture a couple times and thought it was lacking flavor...combined with the fact that I was bringing some "wacky" grain salad to a group of normal eating office mates who don't know me too well, I thought I might quickly turn into the all too healthy, but not so tasty "Cooking School Girl".  Quite the contrary though, they loved it! (or they were just being nice...but I think they really liked it!).  When you combine the lettuce mix with the chicken salad and the dressing, the combination is full of flavor & texture that everyone enjoyed, including myself.  One of the girls was trying to stash any leftovers for herself for later! What a compliment!

The recipe calls for romaine+raddichio+sage tossed in a simple lemon vinaigrette dressing (I used green cabbage instead of raddichio because I had some to use up) and combine it with a blend of chicken+kamut+green & black olives (to which I also added a seasoning salt blend, olive oil, more sage & green onions). 

I am a big fan of chicken salad and just love the idea of doctoring it up with a plump and chewy whole grain like kamut and tossing with vinaigrette instead of mayo. Don't get me wrong, I won't be giving up mayo chicken salad anytime soon, but this lighter alternative is fantastic!
Thanks for coming through for me on this one Lorna!
-Vicki

Oh, and for fun, I took a photo with our fancy camera "bubble" we use for rings...not bad! This would be fun to have at home!