Dining Hall-friendly Chicken Salad

(tested and approved)

chicken breast
mayonnaise
half an apple
celery

optional:
spinach
zucchini
buffalo sauce
nuts
shredded cheese

Cut and mix. Enjoy on a very thick slice of wheat bread (personal preference).

Notes: No, it's no different from chicken salad you can get at Arby's or any grocery store...but it consists entirely of ingredients found in our dining hall. Trust me, the ready-made stuff isn't nearly as tasty as the apple & celery version. I also like mixing in whole spinach leaves and cooking (or microwaving it) just till the chicken's hot, the cheese is melted, and the spinach is spongy. It's a great dorm snack for cold winter nights. (And carb free!)

Jazzy J is my usual test-taster. Rag on him if you disagree with the evaluation of deliciousness.

some explanations...

Ah, maybe I should make a note of how my posts/recipes will go. Obviously I'm no cookbook author (yet). If I copy a recipe I like, it'll have all the culinary language and precise measurements and stuff. But I'm kind of a big fan of measuring by sight (when it's practical) and using a culinary/artistic eye to take care of proportions, colors, etc. So when I'm adapting a recipe or just copying someone else's dish, I will probably only specify the most necessary measurements. Culinary art (still looking for a better synonym, in any language) is as dependent on the style and personality of the creator as music, dance or painting. So I want there to be as much room for elaboration and adaptation as is necessary.

Basically, some of my posts (like the only recipe I have at this point) might only be a list of ingredients and some seemingly obvious instructions. This means that I either have no idea what the best way to go about it is (i.e., I haven't actually made it yet), I want to leave room for artistic freedom, or it actually doesn't matter how you do it as long as you do it and it tastes good. I mean, how many ways can you screw up a salad? (The visual side of my brain is begging to be expressed, but I'm suppressing it until a later date.) Putting ideas and experiments into an organized format just seems better to me than hiding them in five paragraphs of a story about the history, creation, and experience of the recipe. That's not to say that I won't have stories to share (such as mopping soda off my kitchen ceiling), just that they will be separated from the more business-like posts. Yay blogs! They're so addicting.

Vanilla Mint Fruit Salad

(tested and approved)

20-30 oz strawberries, hulled, quartered
2 c seedless green grapes
1/4 c sugar
2 tsp finely chopped fresh mint
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

In short: combine, toss, cover, chill, serve. It looks adorable in tiny dishes (about a quarter-cup serving) and is delicious and refreshing on a warm summer night.

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Brookes made this for us while we were cooking for the five-meat pasta night a few weeks ago. She sent us the recipe afterward from epicurious.com (unimaginatively titled Strawberries and Grapes with Mint and Vanilla) Apparently it is an Italian recipe, and the mint is 'a favorite ingredient in native cooking.' I wasn't too crazy about the idea of vanilla and mint together, but after tasting it I recant all my former feelings. I didn't have time to make it for my parents like I'd hoped, but I did make a big bowl for Adele and me, and we ate it for like a week. I made rice with just a little sushi vinegar and vanilla mixed in and put the fruit on top and packed that for lunch every day. It was delicious!

Edit: Have made this for parents and other relative-type people and it has been universally adored. Added oranges the other day, and it was great. Can't wait to try things like watermelon, peaches, bananas, pineapples, cherries, you get the idea.

我很喜欢吃中国饭，日本饭。

Awesome. 好吃 - Good Eats is up and running. I've never used Blogger before, so I look forward to exploring the possibilities.

Basically this blog exists because I like food. I like eating food, making food, sharing food, and thinking about food. I think my life goal when I'm old and retired is to be a godmother to someone's child and make them lunch every day. So until that happens, this blog is my place to muse on recipes, wonder about combinations, and share my ideas with you, my benefiting reader. Aren't you lucky?

So my title. 好吃. Hao chi (3rd and 1st tones, if you care) means delicious in Mandarin. I am inordinately fond of Asian food (including India and all the tiny scattered Asian countries), plus I'm taking Chinese, so that's my story. Let's get started!