Chicken Salad ftw.

I'm no Thomas, but I can see why it's fun to try and take pictures of the food I make.

It's nice seeing how much my mom cares about me by preparing me for when I move out of the house at the end of the summer.  She's accepting the reality without clinging to me because she acknowledges that she is a momma bird that needs to let her baby fly.  There's no irrational denial, no passivity or roundabout ways of showing me she loves me and doesn't want me to leave - just facing the facts, verbally and clearly expressing how much she's going to miss me and preparing me to be on my own in a practical manner.  She has been making a list of things I'll probably need for the apartment, asking me about how I feel, and doesn't do anything incessantly or excessively that would make me want to bang my head against a wall.  She makes herself available to answer my questions and feed my ongoing curiosity about life.  It's nice.  

One of the best ways she does this is by teaching me things about food.  It's her specialty and the heart of her soul, so when she randomly asks me to make dinner or walks into my room to tell me she's making something, I've learned to hop on the opportunity train to take a ride through her world.  It's thanks to her that I have my love of baking and showing my love for people with food and welcoming people into my home.

Today, we tackled chicken salad.  

This was definitely good for me to learn because I'm not a) I'm not a fan of making my own sandwiches, and b) I'm not a big fan of cold cuts.  I wouldn't say I don't like them, but I'd definitely choose other sandwich stuffers like peanut butter with banana slices, hummus and cucumbers, and chicken/egg/tuna salads before choosing cold cuts.  I'm a girl that likes chunky foods and likes to have a snap or crunch when I bite into a sandwich.  I wouldn't choose chicken salad all the time, every time, though, because it's not the healthiest choice in the world.  In any case, I thought it would be good to learn how to make this. 

My mom taught me how to bone a rotisserie chicken, properly boil an egg, and the basic ingredients for making her chicken salad.  There were optional items, but I threw in what was available in our house.  

Boning a chicken.

Chicken, pecans, craisins, scallions, celery, red onion.

Totally love the craisins.

Don't forget the boiled egg!

Add the mayonnaise, relish, salt and pepper to taste.

Mix it all together and voila!

And guess what?  I did it without a recipe or measurements!

My mom also gave me the recipe for her awesome homemade lemonade and after she taught me how to make the chicken salad she told me one thing she wanted to do before I moved out was make a copy of a bunch of her recipes so I could take them with me.

I told her that that sounded like a great idea and that I was already putting together a recipe book :]