I made this chicken salad for the sandwiches I served at the tea party I threw last weekend. It was wonderful and I’m planning to make it again. All of the quantities are approximate, so modify them to your taste. I cooked the chicken breasts on my George Foreman, but you can cook it anywhere you want.
-4 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded
-2 large celery ribs, chopped
-2 green apples, peeled, cored & chopped
-3/4 cup walnuts, chopped
-1 cup mayonnaise
-1 tbsp. lime juice
-1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
-salt & pepper
Combine the chicken, celery, apples and walnuts. Add mayo, a little bit at a time, just enough to join all the ingredients. Add the lime juice and vinegar, salt and pepper, tasting to make sure the proportions are to your liking.
Author: marga (Page 90 of 112)
My friends and I are now getting together monthly for tea. In May, we celebrated my birthday with tea at the Ritz. In June, Regina was supposed to host but she was too busy (poo poo her!). In July, we celebrated Lotty’s birthday at Lovejoy’s and this month it was time to celebrate Vienna’s birthday at my house (we are out of birthdays for September!).
Our experience at Lovejoy was so positive that I modeled my menu after their own. Of course, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to replicate those incredible fluffy scones, so I decided to make a ginger scone recipe that has been getting raves in the Craigslist food forum. They were very, very good, even though I overbaked them a little bit. I served them with European-style butter, clotted cream (available at Joaquin Deli), orange marmalade, raspberry jam, lemon curd and dulce de leche. The dulce de leche was by far the most popular toping (ha!). I was glad that I got to use the little bowls that I bought at the Japanese restaurant again.
I also served three types of tea sandwiches: cream cheese & cucumber, chicken salad and Stilton and apple – all inspired by the offerings at Lovejoy’s. The cucumber sandwiches were the least popular, apparently traditional cucumber sandwiches have cucumber and butter, not cream cheese. Next time. The chicken salad ones were great and the Silton worked very well with the thin apple slices. I’d originally meant to make them with pear, but the pears available at Safeway are just not very tasty this time of year. I used white sandwich bread to make them and cut the crusts myself, which made them look not very neat. Unfortunately, Safeway no longer stocks Ironkids Crustless Bread, which I LOVE. Does anyone know a source?
Finally, I got a tripple-mousse cake from Safeway, which was delicious.
Lotty brought crumpets, but we never got around to them.
The teas were Akbar Yellow Gold and an Orange Pekoe Tea that I got at the 99-cents store. Both are from Sri Lanka, and both were delicious. I suspect I drank too much, as Camila had a pretty restless night.
In all, we had a great time. The tea started at 3pm and went on until 8pm. It won’t be my turn to host again for several months but I’m looking forward to the next time.
Note: Marita’s is now closed
For years, we’ve driven or even parked by Marita’s Sweet Potato Pie Co. as we visited our friends Regina and Boris, who live in the neighborhood, or stopped by for a drink at Zocalo. I’ve always been curious to check it out, but the concept of “sweet potato pie” just does not appeal to Mike. In the last few weeks, however, I’ve started walking by Marita’s once a week and have had my opportunity to give it a try, and another, and another 🙂
Marita’s is a bakery but one that sells basically two things, cakes (mostly by the slice) and pies. The cakes are simple affairs, consisting of plain cake and frosting. The slices are displayed in two large display cabinets, one of which is filled by slices of Red Velvet Cake alone. The latter is their pride and joy. I liked it, the cake itself didn’t taste like much but the creme cheese filling was delicious. Indeed, this seems to be the case with most of their cakes, the cakes themselves are not special but the fillings are just plain yummy. So far I’ve had the Red Velvet, the coconut, the butter cream and the yellow chocolate – I enjoyed the latter most of all. Still, I’m planning to taste them all in my weekly visits. The slices – priced at $2-2.75 each are quite generous, you shouldn’t have a problem sharing one.
The full cakes ($13-18) are quite large, and they only seem to have a few on display so you may want to call ahead if that’s what you are looking for. In addition to cakes, they serve sweet potato pie, peach cobbler, bread pudding and pecan pie.
The bakery doesn’t have a place to sit, it’s strictly a take-out operation
Marita’s Sweet Potato Pie Co.
600 Dutton Avenue
San Leandro
510-562-3844
A week or so ago I stopped by for a late lunch at Viva Pancho Villa, the new Mexican restaurant/taquer
Every time we buy meat at Costco it lasts us 3 dinners, I don’t like to freeze meat, so once again we had tri-tip for dinner. This time our dinner menu was:
Grilled Tri-Tip with Blue Cheese Butter
Truffled Mashed Potatoes
Grilled Asparagus
To make the blue cheese butter mix softened butter with blue cheese and some chopped garlic (I used the blender to mix it well). Put on wax paper, roll and refrigerate until it hardens. Slice it and serve on top of the meat.
The blue cheese butter worked well with the asparagus as well. To prepare them I washed & dried them and tossed with olive oil and chopped garlic. Grill for about 4 minutes.
To make the mashed potatoes I boiled three peeled and quartered Russet potatoes. I mashed them and mixed with a couple of tablespoons of leftover creme fraiche, a tablespoon or so of milk and as much truffle oil as I needed to get the desire flavor. I also added some kosher salt.
Once again we had a great dinner.
Casa Mar
For dinner tonight we had grilled tri-tip, grilled corn, migas and a celery salad.
Aside from vac
I found these Canadian sodas (also available on Cranberry & Raspberry, Cranberry & Blueberry and Cherry flavors) at the 99-cents store and I was intrigured enough to try them. They are organic, and GMO free, and have no artificial colors or flavors. They also come with the recommended daily value of vitamin C. And at 3 for 99cents, they’re pretty cheap.
Alas, I didn’t really like it. It’s too sweet for my taste, it tastes mostly of lemon oil with a hint of coconut (must be the “oil” aspect of it). I couldn’t even finish the bottle.
A few weeks ago I made a Breton dinner for a few friends and I’ve finally put up the recipes at:
http://www.marga.org/food/int/brittany
All the food was very, very good – and as soon as it gets cool enough to cook at home again I’m going to make that chicken again.
I had a pork tenderloin left over after I made the pamplona a couple of days before and I wanted a quick and easy way to make it. I got this suggestion from a user of the craigslist food forum who uses the moniker “Voltaire”.
Marinade the pork tenderloin in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, with some chopped garlic and rosemary. I didn’t have rosemary so I ommitted it but I did add a tablespoon or so of hoisin sauce to the marinade. Then we grilled it over medium-low heat until done. It was very good, in particular the outside part that had caramelized with the marinade. Next time I’ll butterfly the tenderloin so as to maximize the caramelized area.
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