RE-cipe sharing: Chicken Monique salad

The ladies above are having my usual ladies' luncheon meal of cranberry gelatin salad, Chicken Monique, green salad and mini muffins.  You can find our grandmother's FANTASTIC Cranberry gelatin salad HERE.

At this shower, I seated my mother-in-law, Sherry, our mother, and some of their friends together.  You may notice that the serving of Chicken Monique has already disappeared off some plates.   That is not surprising.  It certainly disappears off my plate very quickly. 

This is my favorite chicken salad recipe.  I serve it at almost every shower and everybody likes it.  To dress up the salad, I serve it in a baked pie crust and top it with sour cream and shredded cheddar cheese.  This is the way chicken salad was served at one of my favorite restaurants that has since closed.  At the restaurant, the chicken salad served as a slice of pie was called Chicken Monique.

Chicken salad
4 servings
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper (if you don't like pepper, reduce to 1/4 teaspoon)
2 lbs. chicken cubed
3 cups seedless grapes halved
1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup celery slices

Combine mayonnaise, sour cream, lemon juice, salt and pepper in one bowl.  In another bowl, combine chicken, grapes, pecans and celery.  Add the mayonnaise mixture to the chicken until it is all mixed.  Chill. Serve over lettuce leaf.

For Chicken Monique, you will need
 1 frozen pastry pie shell
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

To serve the Chicken Salad in the Chicken Monique style, bake a frozen pie shell per instructions.  Let cool.  Fill pie shell with chicken salad, mounding the salad a little in the center.  Cover the chicken salad with 1/2 cup sour cream.  Sprinkle shredded cheddar cheese on top. Put the pie in the refrigerator for at least three hours.  Slice the pie into five slices and serve.

WRITTEN BY REBA

RE-ceiving guests: A Pink & Green Toile Table



A pink & green toile makes a bright & cheerful spring or summer table

Yes, more toile.  It will become a recurring theme on this blog.  As we are going thru old photos to start up our blog, it's become evident how little my sister, Reba and I can resist toile.  It is just so *pretty* and if you add in our DNA-based weakness for china (our mother absolutely NEVER cooks or entertains at home except for Christmas and New Year family meals yet owns 9 sets of formal china), then you will understand our multiple table settings & why they often include toile. 

Do you understand this condition? Does your heart race when you see a beautiful table setting?  Does your hand involuntarily reach out in stores to touch anything covered in toile?  Do you find yourself calculating the cost of buying some plates you don't really need because you are imagining the special and romantic dinner parties you could have if you only you owned the plates on sale?  Fortunately, unlike our mother, Reba and I actually do at least entertain at home and we use the toile items and dishes we buy.  Last year, Reba hosted a bridal shower for the daughter of a close friend.  Reba loves the color Hot Pink and when she found these hot pink & green toile tablecloths on sale at Williams Sonoma, they inspired her other choices.  Simple white plates, white centerpieces and white chairs break up the pink & green so the bright colors don't become garish. Granny Smith apples in the predominantly pink and white centerpieces  and the bright green napkin holders keep the setting from being too "sweet 16" and add some dramatic punch. She got really lucky and found invitations that match the tablecloth material and ordered them online.  They are still available from Invitationbox.com

Whether she is hosting outside on her porch or inside her home, she tries to keep gatherings to 3 tables of 10.  For this particular shower, she hosted inside and used 2 of her long dining tables instead of 3 rented round tables which is her usual preference. You can see her other normal table layout in the Blue Toile Tables entry HERE

Pink goblets complement pink & green toile tablecloth & candles

Our niece, Alexandra and other shower guests

Granny Smith apples in the centerpieces pick up on the green in the toile tablecloths.

Guests enjoyed Ceasar Salad, Chicken Salad & a cranberry gelatin salad.

Reba's Mother-in-law of Marriage Saving Pound Cake Fame, our mother and their friends enjoy a luncheon in Reba's dining room.  Notice how the cranberry salad and the Chicken Monique have disappeared off plates already? These recipes became Reba's luncheon staples because they are extremely popular with guests. 

My sister and co-blogger, Reba,  has simplified the shower throwing process by generally following a lunch menu of Ceasar Salad and Chicken Monique (chicken salad with a pastry base served like a slice of pie) with muffins plus some side dish she mixes up for the event.  The recipe for Chicken Monique is posted HERE
For this particular luncheon, Reba served the cranberry apple salad our family eats at Thanksgiving and Christmas to go with the pink color scheme.  It is our grandmother's recipe and it has become one of our favorite foods. I am sharing the recipe here.  FYI, after I posted this entry with our grandmother's recipe, there was some controversy with our mother over sharing our grandmother's recipe with the world.  I am happy to say generosity won out and I was allowed to keep the recipe up so please take advantage of the recipe.  Seriously, it is DELICIOUS!

CRANBERRY APPLE SALAD

2 cans 1 lb each whole cranberry sauce
2 cups boiling water
2 packages 3 oz each strawberry gelatin
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup real Mayonnaise (although you can substitute Light Mayo to cut calories)
2 cups diced apples
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

MELT cranberry sauce over medium heat.  DRAIN, RESERVE liquid and SAVE berries.  MIX together cranberry liquid, boiling water and gelatin. STIR until gelatin is dissolved.  ADD lemon juice and salt.  CHILL until mixture mounds slightly on a spoon.  ADD mayonnaise, BEAT until smooth.  FOLD in cranberry, apple and nuts.  POUR into a 2 quart mold.  CHILL overnight.

Written by Eldarose






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