Not Your Mama's Chicken Salad

To be fair I suppose I have no idea what kind of chicken salad your mama makes. As a matter of fact, I couldn't even tell you what kind of chicken salad my own mama makes! But I am going to go ahead and assume (and yes, I do know what they say about people who assume thank you very much) that since I threw this together out of the randomness of what had in my kitchen and have never actually had this particular mix of salad, your mama probably wasn't serving this to you on a regular basis.

Enough mama talk, let's get around to making this salad shall we? I am going to give you the gist of what I did since I was just winging this and not measuring as I went. If you are someone who needs exact step by step instructions, this probably isn't the post for you. But don't be afraid to go crazy and give this a try nonetheless. I am sharing a lunch that turned out good for me simply as an inspiration, I promise you can make it work too!

You are going to need:
- Shredded chicken (I always buy chicken on sale and throw it in the crockpot at the beginning of the week so that I can have shredded chicken on hand - so many uses! For this salad I probably used about 2 cups)
- Mayonnaise and sour cream - probably 2 parts mayo to 1 part sour cream, make it as creamy or as dry as you like it
- 1/4 cup chopped red pepper
- 2 Tbsp each of pepitas and sunflower seeds
- Sea salt, freshly ground pepper, garlic powder and roasted red pepper flakes - season to your hearts desire
- A vehicle for your salad - I made tortillas (this recipe from The Happy Housewife is the one I used), you could use pitas, bagels, bread, lettuce....you get the idea.

Throw the above mentioned ingredients into a bowl and stir.

Lay out your vehicle of choice.

Spread some chicken salad on along with anything else you want with it (we put some shredded cheese on top, lettuce would have been good too if I would have had some on hand).

That's good stuff!

Pin this - Food

On this edition of Pin This I thought I would share with you some of the recipes that I have not only found on Pinterest, but also made. I absolutely love trying new recipes and for years subscribed to several food magazines, cooking 3 to 4 new recipes a week. I have since let the subscriptions lapse and rely mainly on the internet to find new ideas. This works especially great as I tighten our food budget (and our budget for extras like magazine subscriptions) because I can look for things that cater to what I already have on hand or will be buying on sale soon and I can look at a number of sources, including Pinterest. Here's what I've been inspired to try over the last few weeks:

These 8 minute mini cinnamon rolls were our Christmas morning breakfast and were absolutely delicious (not to mention E.A.S.Y)

This isn't so much a recipe as it is a tip. Homemade hash browns come out nice and crispy in the waffle maker - Brilliant!

Cookie bowls for ice cream, yum! Mine didn't turn out this beautiful because I used my own cookie dough recipe so I recommend using theirs for a better turnout.

We love us some enchiladas - these Cream Cheese Chicken Enchiladas were pretty good. I think the inside would make an awesome dip!

These homemade tortillas are simple and delicious - I have made them several times (including for the enchiladas) and they have yet to disappoint.

Homeade Cheez-Its caught my eye because I love making snacks that I would normally buy at the store, partly to see if I can and partly for cost and the ability to control what goes in them. Good!

I think I saved the best for last. These Apple Cinnamon Muffins are To.Die.For. Moist, sweet, so good!

 

 

Hope that you are able to try and add some of these to your own recipe boxes. Feel free to share any of your favorite Pinterest recipe finds as well, I'm always up for something new! And if you want to see what other kinds of food ideas have caught my eye hit the Follow Me button in the upper right hand corner of my blog to keep up with all of my Pinterest finds. Happy Pinning!