Chicken salad paninis with green salad and sauteed oranges

I know... I know it's been way too long since the last blog. Just seems like I personally fall into a non motivational rut after Christmas. Well the last few days I have found some kinda of spark again. Starting first with wanting to get back in the kitchens and try things to finally wanting to take the time to document what I am doing. Ok, so I am a complete slacker and took an extended break to re-group my thoughts :)

I got the creative spark today starting with doughnut. Doughnuts?!?!?!... you say well no this particular post is not going to be about doughnuts, however maybe in the near future... Just saying ;) But while thinking about doughnuts I thought chicken and what am I going to do with 3 cans of canned chicken?!?! I have been wanting to make tuna salad melts for a few days now, so I thought I can make chicken salad paninis with our new George Foreman.. Yes we bought a George Foreman grill for the kitchen!

I took 3 cans of chicken, 3-4 tablespoons of mayonnaise, 1 table spoon of mustard 2 teaspoons of horseradish, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salts 1 1/2 teaspoons of pepper, 2 teaspoons garlic, 1/4 teaspoon of paprika, 1/4 teaspoon of red pepper. 1/4 cup of queso cheese.
Mine looked like this....

Chicken Salad before and after adding the queso...

Then since we are totally awesome and have had the most wonderful opportunity to purchase our own meat.. I mean fresh, so fresh that we all pitched in at some part of the butchering process... we are able to make our own bacon. I cut and cooked up a few pieces of bacon to put on the paninis as well...

Now Gage seemed to be the picky one this time and wanted his panini on white bread.. so he basically had a glorified grilled cheese and chicken salad sandwich. Tripp went for the rye bread, as so did Jer and I. I also made a few on Italian seasoned flat bread.....

 

 

 

The construction of the sandwich (including the glorified grilled sammie) And the salad you ask.. super simple.. bagged salad mix (not very creative there) and2 fresh large navel oranges peeled wedged and then cut in half, sauteed in a frying pan with mango juice. Drizzled homemade ranch and some of the extra bacon cut into bits....

 

 



This had very good reviews.. Gage even classed his "panini" in his top 3 fave foods.. ha! what a great kid! Now, it's your turn to try this. You can even try and make it healthier and skip the bacon and swap the mayo for salad dressing. On the green salad you could use a good vinaigrette or and ginger sesame dressing... food for thought!

 

Now go bake/cook something!!

<3 T