decadent Waldorf-esque Salad

I love cooking.  I love taking a stack of delicious ingredients, and making even more delicious food.  I also love mixing fruit with meat.  Pork loin stuffed with figs, apricots, and pistachios?  Chicken roasted with dried cranberries and apple?  thinly sliced granny smith apple on my roasted turkey sandwich? Yes, yes, and yes please can I have some more.

Cooking is so enjoyable because my pantry and fridge are always stocked with the basics including brown sugar, honey, butter, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, dried fruit, apples, tons of olive oil, and more butter. A quick trip to the store for fresh meat, dairy, and fruit means a delicious dinner is on the way. I know enough that I can put together a pretty impressive meal with whatever is in the house.

Last night we did “Fakesgiving”, which was a perfect excuse to trial some recipes for Thanksgiving. I roasted a whole chicken, and rubbed under and over the skin was a compound butter made with herbs, salt, chopped dried apricots, and dried cranberries. the secret to browned skin? SO MUCH BUTTER.

My fridge was full of delicious leftovers this morning, including a chicken carcass that went right into the stock pot with carrots, celery, onions, parsley and peppercorns, and a mountain of carved chicken.   But chicken all by itself is kinda boring.

Let’s see,  ingredients that I have on hand….  leftover cooked chicken, granny smith apple, celery, dried cranberries, and is that some grapes in the fruit bowl, and greek yogurt in the fridge?  Time for the best Waldorf Salad I’ve ever had!  The original Waldorf Salad is very boring, if you ask me. And as much as I love Mayonnaise, I don’t want to be eating that much of it.

The Best Waldorf Salad

(all measurements are approximate because I didn’t measure anything)

1 cup chopped cooked chicken

half a granny smith apple, chopped

1 stick celery, chopped

1 cup grapes, cut in half

2 tbsp craisins

a big dollop of greek yogurt. I don’t know, a half cup? it was about half of one of the single serve Fage containers.

salt and pepper to taste.

Chopped walnuts are traditional, and had I remembered I would have put in chopped pecans because I like those better.

Combine all ingredients, and indulge. You will feel decadent eating this, I promise!

Note to self: Learn the tricks of photographing food so it looks appetizing.   because this looks like a blob of white with darker blobs.