Buffalo Chicken Salad

It is hot. Any piece of exposed skin sticks to anything it touches. Any skin not exposed is getting kinda sweaty. Lately the whole motive when planning dinner is minimizing the amount of time adding to the already sweltering temperatures inside the house. Partly this is my fault. I've been so far successful in keeping the air conditioning unit out of the window. You know keeping our energy usage down and being green and all that crap. Besides, this third day of weather over 90 degrees is just a heat wave. It's supposed to end tonight. Or tomorrow morning. Call me an optimist.

So today's effort to make dinner without resorting to raw food, or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, is a delicious Buffalo Chicken Salad. Total cooking time is about 6 minutes of broiling. It also involved opening and closing the fridge a bunch of times. So I think it evens right out. And it was very healthy and delicious to boot!
Now if we could just get these thunderstorms that are looming on the horizon to cut the humidity. Then things would be just fine.

Buffalo Chicken Salad
adapted from Ellie Krieger and the Food Network

2 (8ounce) boneless, skinless, chicken breast halves
3 Tbsp Frank's Hot Sauce
2 tsp olive oil
2 hearts Romaine, cut into 1-inch strips (about 8 cups)
2 celery stalks, thinly sliced
2 carrots, coarsely grated
2 scallions, green part only, sliced
1/2 cup Blue Cheese Dressing (recipe follows)

Preheat the broiler. Thinly slice the chicken and toss in a large bowl with the hot sauce and oil until the chicken is well coated. Arrange the chicken on a baking sheet and broil until it is cooked through, about 6 minutes.In a large bowl, combine the Romaine, celery, shredded carrots and scallions. Divide the greens between 4 plates. Top with chicken and serve with Blue Cheese Dressing and more hot sauce

Blue Cheese Dressing

2 Tbsp Hellman's Canola mayonnaise
1/4 cup low fat buttermilk
1/4 cup plain fat free yogurt
1 Tbsp white vinegar
1/2 tsp sugar
1/3 cup crumbled blue cheese
salt and ground pepper

Fold a full sheet of paper towel into quarters and put it into a small bowl. Spoon the yogurt onto the paper towel and place in the refrigerator for 20 minutes to drain and thicken. In a medium bowl, whisk the buttermilk and thickened yogurt into the mayonnaise until smooth. Add the vinegar and sugar and continue to whisk until all the ingredients are well combined. Stir in the blue cheese and season, to taste, with salt and pepper.

Ranch Dressing

It would have to be Spring that it's been raining all day and we just didn't want something hot and warming for dinner. Actually for a moment, the skies were blue and the leaves on the trees and the new wheat in the fields were all sparkly and washed clean. The Brain and I on our quarterly trip back from Costco, with a car full of meat, took a different way home and discovered several good roads to ride my bicycle on. If only I was allowed on my bicycle. But I will be allowed back on it eventually and until then I just have to remember where those roads were. Nice rolling roads with little traffic.

So yeah, despite the recurring rain, the Brain wanted a salad for dinner. That worked out nicely with my new cookbook purchase of The New Best Recipe Cookbook from the editors of Cook's Illustrated. To make a long story short, the Brain and I have a deal that when he spends a specified amount of money on fast food I get to buy a book (because I don't eat fast food). It came down to this cookbook, a $65 book that is more like an encyclopedia of vegetables that I know I can check out at the library, and the Martha Stewart Living Cookbooks. I first heard of this cookbook from Deborah over at Taste and Tell. It was her cookbook of the month a couple months ago and I kept drooling over her selections. I have to say there's a ton of information about every recipe and the cookbook details the different trials and errors in making each recipe. It's a great cookbook for nerds like me! I knew that I had some buttermilk to use up so I made the Ranch dressing recipe. Totally delicious! It was a little chunky though, I guess I could have minced my vegetables a little smaller.

It was terrific on a nice Romaine salad with crumbled bacon, hard boiled eggs, bell peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and grilled chicken thighs. Tasty.

Ranch Dressing

adapted from the New Best Recipe

1/2 small garlic clove minced to a paste with 1/4 tsp salt

1/4 small red bell pepper, minced

1/4 small onion, minced

1 medium scallion, white and green parts, minced

1 1/2 tsp minced fresh parsley leaves

1 1/2 tsp minced fresh cilantro leaves

1/2 tsp juice from 1 small lemon

pinch of fresh cracked black pepper

1/4 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup mayonnaise

2 Tbsp sour cream

Mix the garlic paste , bell pepper, scallion, onion, parsley, cilantro, lemon juice, and black pepper in a medium bowl. Add the buttermilk, mayonnaise, and sour cream and whisk until smooth. (The dressing can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 4 days.)