Tag Archives: hummus

kitchen tip tuesdays: my favorite {healthy!} chicken salad

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Hi, friends! I have a quick, easy and healthy recipe to share with you today as part of Kitchen Tip Tuesdays! I love chicken salad but I don’t like mayonaise very much, so I was on a mission to find a healthier recipe for chicken salad that I could make at home. I think I found a winner!

I like to bake chicken breasts ahead of time during the weekend {see my earlier post about making the most of oven time} so I typically have cooked chicken breasts in a tupperware container in my fridge. Often to save time and extra dishes, I mix up the chicken salad in the tupperware container, and I’m ready to grab and go if need be!

chicken salad

healthier chicken salad
– 2 cups cooked, shredded chicken breast
– 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt {you could add more or less yogurt as desired}
– 2 tbsp hummus
– 2 stalks celery, chopped
– 1/4 cup dried cranberries
– 1/4 cup slivered almonds
– salt and pepper to taste

1. Stir Greek yogurt and hummus into chicken until fully incorporated.

2. Add chopped celery, dried cranberries, slivered almonds, and mix well.

3. Add salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!

It’s a great lunch, especially as the weather continues to warm up! I like serving the chicken salad over a bed of baby spinach.

chicken salad lunch

Have a great day! I’ll be back tomorrow with a post I’m really excited to share with you! 🙂

Till soon,
Dallas

MPM-Spring

This post is also linked up with Menu-Plan Mondays!

goals and meal-plan for the week of 1/27

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Hi everyone! Hope you’ve had a lovely weekend! A few snapshots from mine so far:

blueberry oatmeal

Oatmeal + blueberries … my favorite cozy wintertime breakfast!

blender

Blender all ready to make homemade hummus!

Here’s how I did on my goals from last week:

  • write 10 more pages of my YA novel
  • blog about Week 3 Act of Kindness Challenge & complete it myself this week
  • finish reading Best American Short Stories 2012 {I got side-tracked with a Judy Blume adult novel I checked out from the library!}
  • finish grading first assignment for both classes {Professional Email assignment}
  • knit 25 rows of the scarf I’m working on
  • go through stack of old magazines and purge!
  • send thank-you notes to the lovely people I met at the Key West Literary Seminar

And here are my goals for this upcoming week:

  • write 10 more pages of my YA novel
  • revise first 3 chapters of my thesis novel
  • blog about Week 4 Act of Kindness Challenge & complete it myself this week
  • finish grading the next assignment for both classes
  • submit at least 3 pieces to journals or theater companies
  • finish reading Best American Short Stories 2012
  • knit 25 more rows of the scarf I’m working on
  • clean out & organize filing cabinet

Finally, here are some recipes I’m planning to make this week:

– hummus-crusted chicken
– wheat-berry mock risotto
– cilantro-honey-lime salmon
– pumpkin pie

What are your weekly goals? What’s on your menu plan? Hope it’s another masterpiece of a week!

-Dallas

homemade yummy hummus = yummus!

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Considering my love for hummus now, it’s hard to believe, but I did not discover this delicious dip until I was in college. I particularly remember falling head-over-heels for hummus my junior year, when I studied abroad for a semester in Norwich, England. The grocery chain Tesco made a superb fresh hummus, and nearly every weekday for lunch I would make myself a plate of hummus and pita bread before heading off to class. My flatmates {dormmates} would tease me about it, and I kept wondering when I would grow tired of my hummus lunchtime routine, but I never did. I ate hummus and pita bread for lunch nearly every weekday of my sixth-month stay in Norwich, and I kept eating it when I returned home to the States. I’ve never been able to find a store-bought hummus that tastes quite as good as my memory of that hummus from Tesco. Plus, store-bought hummus can get a little pricey, and who knows what preservatives and additives I’m inhaling along with my pita bread.

So, this week, I decided to get out my blender and try making my own hummus. I’m SO glad I did, because it is absolutely delicious, waaaaay cheaper than store-bought brands, and could not be easier to make! I also love how I can control how much oil, garlic and spices go in. And it was simple to make my hummus organic — I just paid 20 cents more for the organic version of Kroger-brand garbanzo beans!

easy-peasy garlic hummus

– 1 (19 ounce) can garbanzo beans, most of the liquid reserved
– 1 tablespoon lemon juice
– 1 tablespoon olive oil
– 2 tablespoons tahini
– 2 cloves garlic, chopped {I used 2 tsp pre-chopped garlic}
– 1/4 teaspoon salt
– black pepper, red pepper, or cumin to taste

1. In a blender, or by hand, chop the garlic. Pour garlic and garbanzo beans into blender.

2. Pour lemon juice, tahini, olive oil, chopped garlic, salt, and optional spices in blender. Blend until creamy and well mixed.

3. Add additional bean liquid to get desired texture and additional spices, salt and lemon to taste.

4. Optional: chill in the fridge for 15-20 minutes, or as long as you can stand the wait. I think this hummus tastes even better the next day, once the flavors have had a chance to marinate together for a little while!

I served mine with fresh sliced carrots and cucumber. I also love eating hummus with warm pita bread. Makes a great lunch or healthy snack! Hummus also makes a great sandwich spread — I’ll use it instead of mustard or mayonnaise.

What are some of your favorite veggie dips & sandwich spreads? Any other hummus-obsessed people out there?

-Dallas

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-Time spent: 15 minutes
-Cost: $3.00

You might also enjoy these healthy snack posts:
– baked mango with brown sugar & cinnamon
– creamy avocado yogurt dip from Two Peas & Their Pod
– honey goat cheese dip from Peanut Butter Fingers