Left-Overs - Part 2: Chicken Curry Salad

With the other half of my left-overs from the weekend (balsamic-marniated chicken breast) and various vegetables and other items I had in the pantry, I made a very quick chicken curry salad:

Ingredients:

- Cooked chicken breast, cut into 1cm cubes
- 1/2 cucumber, brunoised
- 1 large carrot, brunoised
- Handful green beans, cut on the diagonal into small pieces
- 1/4c slivered almonds
- Packet of pre-cooked barley and spices (similar to this)
- 2oz part-skim low-fat mozzarella cheese
- 1/4c plain yogurt
- 1T curry powder
- 1T lime juice
- 1t honey
- Salt and pepper to taste

Toss the first 7 ingredients together in a bowl.  Mix the yogurt, curry powder, lime juice, honey, and slat and pepper together in a small bowl and then dress the chicken salad. 

By using the leftovers and the pre-cooked barley/whole grain rice mix, you can really put this lunch together in a matter of minutes in the morning!
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Left-Overs - Part 1: Pasta with Chicken and Balsamic Mustard Sauce

Over the weekend I made chicken paninis for Cillian and his running buddy, Tom.  I had bought four chicken breasts, and threw them all in the marinade of balsamic vinegar, water, chicken spice seasoning, and mustard seeds.  I cooked three of the four breasts for our sandwiches, and left one lonely breast in the marinade.  I also had some left-over cooked spagheti (dressed only with a little butter and parmesan), so here is what I made for lunch:

Ingredients:
- 1 chicken breast, marinated in balsamic, water, chicken spice seasoning, and mustard seeds
- Canola oil
- 2T shallots, finely minced
- 1/2c wine
- 1/2 - 1c chicken stock
- 1T mustard
- 1t mustard seeds
- Salt and pepper as needed
- Cooked noodles

Heat your oil in your pan.  Add the chicken breast and saute until cooked.  (You could cut your breast into bite-sized pieces before cooking, but I wanted to let it cook longer and really have the balsamic marinade get carmelized and dark, dark brown, so I left the breast whole and cut it up after it was cooked.)

Remove the cooked chicken, deglaze with wine, add shallots and cook until almost all of the liquid has evaporated.  Add the chicken stock and mustard seeds and reduce until sauce consistency.  Add mustard, salt, and pepper.

Toss noodles, chicken, and sauce.  Voila, lunch in 20 minutes (also great reheated)!

Quilt for Baby Sprout

Here is the finished quilt that I offered a sneak-peak of last week.  It is for my good friend Kristen's baby on the way... "Baby Sprout" for now. 

Kitchen Renovation - Before and After

Our kitchen renovation is complete, except for a few finishing touches.  The contractors will come back for one more day to install the last cabinets (which had to be reordered because the space was slightly too tight for what we had ordered), finish the backsplash around those cabinets, put on the hardware, and finish some touch-up painting.  We were able to move back into the kitchen and I even cooked a full meal this weekend! 

And here is a good picture of the amazing change in our floors!

 



So much better!  We're still trying to figure out why anyone would cover these beautiful wood floors with faux-brick linoleum!

Kitchen Renovation - Day 13

The most impressive progress today was in the bathroom.  The toilet was supposed to be installed today, but we learned that our old toilet has a crack in it and so instead of re-installing it, we are going to buy a new one.  Brandon found a good deal on one, so hopefully the bathroom will be fully up and running after one more day!

There is also a little bit of baseboard that still has to be added on the wall with the sink.  The crew is also going to make us a radiator cover for the small radiator in the corner.  This was the only radiator in the whole house that didn't have a cover.  We researched various options on how to make our own radiator cover or how much it would cost to have someone make one for us.  We were surprised to learn how expensive they can be.  So we're thrilled that the guys offered to make one for us as part of our contract.  They are going to use a left-over piece of granite from the kitchen countertop for the top, so it will function like an extra shelf in the bathroom. 

After having trouble fitting the kitchen pendant light in, I was a bit worried about my selection for the bathroom, but I think it works great!

Kitchen Renovation - Day 12

My new pantry is in!

Brandon and his crew made these custom doors to mimic the pattern of our cabinets.  They selected the trim pieces and tacked them on to flat-pannel doors to add some detail.  They also custom-made the trim around the pantry doors, which looks almost exactly like the old trim around all the rest of our doors.  I'm so thrilled.... wait until you see what is going inside the pantry!

We were left with a little bit of space above the pantry that was not going to be very accessible from inside, so we decided to make it open to the outside.  This was originally conceived of as a shelf for cookbooks, but I think it's a bit high to reach and it may be the perfect space for some much-needed wine storage!