For His Master's Veneration: Summer Surprise Salads

Chicken salad sandwiches seem boring after awhile. For your next luncheon or anytime you want a light meal that stands out from the rest. Try one of these fun ideas. They are just made for relaxing in the shade when you escape from the daytime heat. Have some summer time salad wraps & finger food. Forget the same old soup & sandwiches. Surprise your special someone with an Avocado Chicken salad wrap, or perhaps a Pina Colada Chicken salad, or a Mustard-Lemon whip egg salad. The secret is to use non-fat Greek style yogurt instead of mayonnaise. Try that and the possibilities are nearly as endless as the different flavors of yogurt.

Shake things up once in awhile. Serve them wraps or tiny open faced finger food. Best of all Don't forget to freeze the grapes! These make a fantastic, low-cal side. They are also a great late night TV snack.

Ingredients are varied so gather the basics:

For wraps: a package of flour tortillas warmed

Lemon Avocado Salad

Ingredients:

2 cups chopped deli-roasted chicken

½ cup chopped celery

1 5oz. container of lemon flavored Greek Style Yogurt

¼ cup thinly sliced green onion tops

¼ cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese

2 cloves garlic, minced

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

chopped small avocado

Directions:

Do your cutting. The chicken, onions, any garlic, celery, even the avocado.

(Cut them lengthwise down to the seed. Pull apart and scoop the seed out. With a table knife draw down lines to but not through the skins then peal the skin backwards. The little squares of avocado will pop up.)

In a large bowl: mix together the cut up chicken, celery, onion, and avocado.

Spoon in the yogurt, Parmesan cheese, and garlic. Toss gently to combine and cover. Set in the refrigerator for a couple of hours for flavors to blend. Then make your wraps.

NOTE: there are several videos on Youtube that show you how to “wrap a burrito”. Most of them show the very same thing. Let slave only add that you should keep a small bowl of water with 1 teaspoon of cornstarch mixed in. As you finish rolling, take a pastry brush and brush that mixture. It will act like a glue to keep it rolled. When ready to serve: make a diagonal cut in the center, giving two half's that are easy to hold.

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Pina Colada Chicken salad

Ingredients:

2 cups shredded cooked chicken (about 1 pound)

¾ cup dried cranberries

½ cup finely chopped red onion (1 medium)

¼ cup shredded coconut

1 5 ounce carton “pina colada” or “pineapple flavored Greek style yogurt

½ cup pecans or walnuts, coarsely chopped

Directions:

In a large bowl combine chicken, cranberries, red onion, and coconut; set aside.

Stir yogurt and remaining ingredients into chicken mixture. If desired, cover and chill for up to 24 hours.

Roll up your wraps and cover in refrigerator until ready to serve.

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Mustard-Lemon whip egg salad

Ingredients:

4 hard cooked eggs

1 Tbs mustard

1 Tbs sweet pickle relish

1 5 oz. Carton of “Lemon Meringue” flavored Greek style yogurt.

Party rye bread (these are the 2 inch square stacks of rye or whole wheat bread)

Directions:

Use your favored method of hard boiling the eggs and shell. Allow to completely cool, it helps to cut them open and even go head and chop them up into small (¼ inch) dices.

When cool, mix in the mustard, pickle relish and fold in the yogurt. Spoon on the rye squares. Cover the platter and keep cold until serving.

As a side:

Wash a bunch of seedless grapes (chose your favorite: red or green or even both.) Dry them while still on their tiny branch and put in the freezer.

Serve these as a side in place of greasy chips. OK, serve chips too if you like. But they will LOVE the grapes!

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For this particular get together, slave had some left over browned ground beef. So that was mixed with BBQ sauce, spooned on the squares and slipped under the broiler for a minute or two. This was the one HOT food served to make a compliment of tastes, textures and temperatures!