Semi-classic Cobb Salad

I was perusing some of my favorite blogs, and this salad at Smitten Kitchen made me want to race out and make it.  Meaty and cheesy salads are, of course, the best kind.   I was forced to deviate a bit from the SK recipe due to personal taste and v. fuzzy bleu cheese (note: this fuzziness made the bleu cheese have a Magic Eye quality - I couldn't look directly at it and focus).  

First, I made the dressing (of which I took no photos) - about 1/3 c canola oil, about 1/4 c apple cider vinegar, the juice of one lemon, one minced garlic clove, 3/4 tsp dry mustard, 1/2 tsp Worcestershire, 1 1/2 tsp honey, and salt/pepper.  Vigorously mix - the dry mustard doesn't serve the emulsifying role that a prepared mustard would.  

Then we make our nice bed of lettuce - I used only romaine because I do not like watercress and because that is what I had:

I then added the sliced hard boiled egg, tomato, and some seedless cucumber

And now, the heavy hitters - grilled chicken, cheddar cheese, avocado, and BACON!

I wanted to make a beautiful salad display but didn't think through serving it - it ends up a big mess on the plate, but it was lovely and I want to eat it all the time.

Chicken potstickers

As part of a new healthier eating lifestyle for 2010, I've been wracking my recipe books and websites for healthy, lower cal, lower fat recipes that still have high flavor and still leave you feeling full.  I did some research and discovered that we could each have a plateful of chicken potstickers with some snap peas for less than 425 calories.

First, the potsticker filling:  ground chicken, green onion, low sodium soy sauce (which is still terribly salty as it turns out), sesame oil, garlic, honey, worcestershire, and an egg yolk (would had ginger if not for the vociferous objection of the husband).  Mix.  Chill.

Meanwhile, I made a dipping sauce - soy sauce, garlic, red pepper flakes, honey, a squirt of ketchup, and white wine vinegar.  This ultimately turned out to be way too salty, even for a salt lover such as myself.  Will consider modifications.

Next, I laid out all the happy won ton wrappers, ready to be filled

There we go...a nice little blobette of filling

I promise, I made a very bad one the first time, and I did take a pic, but it got lost somehow.  This one, while not perfect, is much better and actually sealed:

And here we have a plate of 16 - 8 for each of us

Time to cook them - about 2 tsp of veg oil into a very hot pan - 2 minutes of sauteeing to brown the bottoms (or nuclearize them if you have my stove)

Then add a half cup of chicken stock and pop a lid on for 3-5 min to cook the filling

The liquid will be all gone by this point

Plate it up with your sauce and slam it.  You can see some of the crusty bottomed ones there too.  Which I like, but may be too crusty for some.

As I said, the dipping sauce was out of control salty.  The filling was a bit bland.  So what I may do is just toss a bit of the sauce into the remaining filling and lose the sauce.  It was a very filling and tasty dinner and will DEF be riffing on this idea in the weeks and months of weight loss to come!