Chicken Salad

Not long ago, hubby and I had a date at our new local museum (Crystal Bridges). While there, we decided to have lunch because...well, it was lunchtime. There is a neat restaurant in the museum named "Eleven". I am not sure why it has that name. But that is beside the point (as so many of my points are:).

I am still watching my calories since I am recording them in "My Fitness Pal" daily. I knew I was having my "calories don't count" day for V-day when we ate our Chicago deep dish pizza. So that meant I had to be good.

I browsed the menu, unsure of what to do. Most of it looked good but high calorie.

One thing stuck out to me though. Chicken salad. I quickly looked it up on My Fitness Pal and found it to be fairly low calorie.

The funny thing is I didn't eat chicken salad as a child. I didn't eat it as a young adult. I basically didn't eat it until I was about age...40. About a week ago to be exact.

And I loved it.

I wondered, "Why haven't I eaten this before?"

Then of course, my next thought was, "How can I make it at home?"

I always need quick lunches for my school week.

I did a little search on Pinterest and found a couple of recipes. This recipe was my favorite. It reminded me most of what I had at the museum.

And it really is fairly low cal (or can be).

Ingredients:
2 cans (12.5 oz) chicken (You can use 3 cups of shredded cooked chicken but if you don't mind the taste of canned chicken, it is MUCH faster and easier :)

3/4 cup light mayonnaise (I really like the one with olive oil)

1 cup red grapes (the original recipe said to cut the grapes in half...I quartered them instead so they wouldn't be too big)

1 stalk celery diced

1 green onion diced

salt and pepper to taste

a spoonful of nuts. I have been using half a tablespoon of slivered almonds which were made for salad

The original recipe calls for a half a cup of diced apples, but I omitted that part.

Directions:
Mix all ingredients together. Top with the nuts (almonds, pecans, or cashews)

Keep leftovers refrigerated.

The first time I tried this recipe out, I put it on some "flat bread", a new product for me. I wasn't crazy about it.

Today I put it on top of a leaf of lettuce and just ate it with a fork.

I liked that much better! (And it was much lower calorie-wise)

More soon,
Reba