Tried & True Recipe: Chicken Apple Cranberry Salad with Honey-Balsamic Vinaigrette

Fall arrives in less than 6 days, but with temps still in the 80s I'm not yet ready to transition to all those warm yummy comfort foods (like soup!) that will surely start popping up on my menu in a few weeks.  I love to eat salads during warm weather months, just like I love to eat soup during cold weather months.  It drives my husband a little nuts, but I'm definitely one of those people with strong weather-related food associations.  Warm weather is for grilling, salads, lighter fare, and food that doesn't require heating up your house for hours to cook it.  Cold weather is for sooouuuppps(!), stews, comfort foods, and things that can cook away for hours heating up your kitchen before they heat up your belly.

Salad is on our menu nearly weekly during warm weather months.  It's easy to throw together, versatile, everyone can top their salad to their preference, and leftovers are good.  The very best salads have a variety of ingredients with different, complimentary flavors and textures.  I've already shared one of my very favorite summer salads, allow me to introduce you to it's late summer/early fall counterpart: a chopped salad with chicken, apples, dried cranberries, blue cheese, and pecans, topped with sweet and tangy honey-balsamic vinaigrette.  This salad is well-balanced, fall-ish, and takes advantage of seasonal produce (apples!), but is still light and refreshing.


Chicken Apple Cranberry Salad with Honey Balsamic Vinaigrette
Honey Balsamic Vinaigrette inspired by Brown Eyed Baker


For the vinaigrette:

2T Balsamic Vinegar
1/4 c Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
2T Honey
1/2 T Dijon Mustard
1/4 t Salt
1/8 t Ground Black Pepper
1/8 t Garlic Powder

Combine ingredients in small mason jar or other container with a tight seal.  Shake until well combined and set aside.  Can be made in advance and keeps well stored in the refrigerator.  Yields ~3/4 cup.


For the salad:

Romaine Lettuce (or other lettuce of choice: spring mix/spinach blend, baby kale, or rubbed kale would be good here)
Diced Grilled Chicken (we season ours with salt, pepper, and garlic powder)
Diced Granny Smith Apple (I like Granny Smith's for salad because they're firm and crunchy and have a nice tangy flavor, but whatever you prefer)
Blue Cheese (or Feta)
Craisins
Pecans (or Walnuts)

Combine ingredients to your preference and top with honey-balsamic vinaigrette.  Easy peasy. Obviously, the ingredients are super flexible, that's another thing I like about salad.  Switching a few things up will make a similar, but slightly different salad!  Bacon would also be a good addition, because bacon is always good.

Week of September 13th

This week is feeling quite fall-ish with temperatures in the 60s and much chillier overnights. I'm steadfastly clinging to the last bits of summer like I do every year and temps should be back in the 80s leading into the official start of fall.

It's not that I don't like fall, I actually appreciate living in an area with four distinct seasons, but I often appreciate it more in theory than practice.  The first few weeks of fall with the sunny, crisp weather is great.  Who doesn't love that?  Bake up an apple crisp and watch some football (if you're not me), great, but then too soon we get into real fall weather and it's rainy and cold and gray and we won't see the sun in any reliable way for months.  That's not weather I actually appreciate on a day-to-day basis.  Same with winter, it's all well and good at first.  Snow is fun, in theory, but then January hits and it draaaggggssss on and everything is so bleak you feel like you'll never see the sun again.  I'm really much more of a warm weather person so I'm kind of sad to start down this path of cold, sad weather.  It does make me appreciate spring and summer all the more though.

Friday through Sunday I was at a postpartum doula workshop.  It was fun learning the postpartum side of doula work.  It seems that more people are aware of what a birth doula does than what a postpartum doula can offer.  Postpartum doulas are experts in the transition that happens once you add a new baby into the mix.  They help assist you through that shifting dynamic whether it's your first baby, or your fourth (or more!)  They help you get breastfeeding established in those early weeks and make sure that your needs are attended to while you're caring for your baby.  They help you figure out how to do this whole parent thing and balance it with the rest of the areas of your life. Think back to your first baby especially, how amazing would  it have been to have a knowledgeable, comforting presence sitting with you on the couch reassuring you when you wondered if breastfeeding was going ok, or standing there encouraging you as you gave baby their first bath, or throwing in a load of laundry, bringing you a nutritious snack, and refilling your cup of water while  in those early days of all encompassing parenthood?  Pretty awesome, right?!

When I started my journey as a birth doula I wasn't all that interested in postpartum work, but to be honest I see such a need for it that it made me interested in offering the service.  I'm really looking forward to providing continuity of care that extends past birth and into the early weeks of parenthood. New parents deserve support!

Jack didn't have school on Monday, which I actually forgot.  I was tiiiired from being in this training all weekend and I dragged myself out of bed first thing Monday morning.  Made breakfast.  Packed lunch.  Pulled out the folder from his backpack to sign his weekly progress report and saw the calendar for the week that no one else had laid eyes on that said a big old NO SCHOOL on Monday.  Ugh.  I actually had previous knowledge that there was no school on 9/14, but at that point I didn't realize what the date was and it just wasn't something I was thinking about.  So anyway, that was kind of annoying, but it was nice  having him home for the day.  The weather was gorg, but Mark accidentally took the carseats to work with him so we couldn't go too far.  We decided just to walk to our little neighborhood park, which is such a nice thing to have.  Because school was closed there were other kids to play with there and a good time was had.

I feel like this past weekend with the workshop was kind of the unofficial end to a crazy busy month to six weeks that I've had.  I say unofficial because I do have kind of a busy week this week into the weekend with miscellaneous things, but next week things should slow down considerably for about a month.  Looking forward to it!


Dinners for the week:


Sunday: Post-workshop pizza with friends

Monday:  Skillet Eggplant Parmesan with Salad

Tuesday:  Grilled Burgers w/ Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Wednesday:  Salad w/ Chicken, Apples, Cranberries, Blue Cheese

Thursday:  Leftovers

Friday & Saturday:  Out

Week of September 6th

The holiday weekend was dominated by flooring for us.  I've found it's one thing to consider replacing over 500 sq ft of flooring yourself and another to actually DO it.  It's been a lot of work, but so far well worth it. Mark may not have felt the project worth it he spent most of an entire day tearing out the tile in our entryway...

Late afternoon on Friday I came home from a client visit to find that Mark had torn out most of the carpet.

Day 1

We spent the remainder of that evening prying up a million and one staples and roughly a linear mile of tack strips.*

*I might be slightly exaggerating the quantities, but it felt accurate at the time. 

Once the carpet was up we were able to see that the entryway tile was laid on plywood, not directly on the subfloor so we were hopeful the tile would come up relatively easily.


Saturday was spent tearing out the entryway tile.

Day 2

It did not come up easily.  The hardest part was getting it started and figuring out the best technique, but Mark really had to work to get every bit of tile off.  Then the wood it was laid on needed to come up and that was a whole other project as well. One would think it would just come up, but nooooo.  It was nailed down with a million* little nails. So the wood came up slowly and stubbornly as well.

*perhaps exaggerated.

I was at a birth all afternoon and evening so Mark was on his own with the tile and the kids for most of the day.  Lucky him!

Sunday we still had a little more work in the entryway to contend with.  Mark ripped up a few last bits of the plywood and I ripped out toooons of nails.  Then we did a good sweeping and vacuumed with a shop vac to get all the debris cleaned  up.

Then it was finally time to start laying the wood flooring!

Day 3

Ahhh, progress!

I wish we had more progress to show for as many hours as we spent the first day laying flooring, but the first few rows took a disproportionate amount of time.  We had to figure out what we were doing and because they are installed by clicking and locking each plank into place those first few rows kept shifting around because they didn't have enough weight to stay in place.  Annoying. Once we finally seemed to hit our stride we got to the little hallway over there on the left in the bottom picture and had some challenging cuts to contend with, which really slowed progress.  Alas, we ended up getting maybe 1/4 of the room done.

Monday brought more progress.  We jumped in bright and early and were able to really chug along.

Day 4

We had to knock off a few hours early on Day 4 because we went to my parents' house for dinner that evening, but all in all we were able to get probably 85% or so of the main flooring completed, yay!

We still have this little strip, which includes the entryway and we also have to lay flooring in the closet, which is a small space, and tackle the bathroom, which will be a project in itself because everything is going to need to come out, and flooring will need to be torn out of there before we can lay it.  Eeek!  Buuuut, hopefully this coming weekend will find us putting the finishing touches on our main living space!  Once the floor is all laid we have to install quarter round, but we're definitely in the home stretch.

Unfortunately for Mark I'm going to be a postpartum doula training workshop all weekend so we'll see if he's able to make any progress on his own.  I had grand ideas of getting some work done on my own this week, but I'm scared to use the circular saw.  I wouldn't get far without an assistant so I'm going to leave it to Mark.

And now... I need to choose a rug, which is a task that's way more intimidating to me than it should be :/


Food for the week:



Sunday:  Out

Monday:  Parents' house for dinner

Tuesday:  Paleo Sausage Veggie Bake

Wednesday:  Salmon with Mango Guacamole and Garlic Green Beans

Thursday:  Homemade Pizza

Friday & Saturday: Out

Week of August 30th

We've had a crazy couple of weeks around here.

Jack started school on a Friday.  Two days later on Sunday Molly woke up sick, Jack seemed to be okay until Tuesday night, the evening before his second day of school/first day with everyone there and promptly had to miss school.  Such poor timing considering the kids are rarely sick!  Luckily he was sick for about 24 hours and was able to return to school on Thursday.

First school project.  #likeaboss

Last week was Jack's first full week of school and I had lactation counselor training scheduled for the whole week.  With a lot of help from family, and friends, and of course Mark, the kids and house were tended to so that I could attend my training.

What a week it turned out to be as I ended up with not only a week long training, but TWO semi-unanticipated births!  Babies come when babies come, but poor timing for me!  One of the births was the latest (gestationally) I've attended yet as a doula, the other was the earliest I've had.  They also happened at the same time.  And at the same time as the training I wasn't allowed to miss.  What are the chances?!?!

So I ended up missing a day of my training, and one of the births (because I'm only one person, thank goodness for having a great backup doula in these sorts of crazy situations!), and plenty of sleep, but we got it done.  Because I missed a day of training I wasn't able to sit for my exam even though I totally could have passed it even having missed some class ::shakes fist::  On the bright side I will have an opportunity to make up the class and exam in October without having to travel too far so I'm looking forward to that.

Ugh, what a week!

So this week I'm playing catch up and trying to get into the groove of our new routines with Jack being in school and saying goodbye to a good friend of mine (and doula backup) who will be moving out of state and oh, it's suddenly September!  WHERE DID THE SUMMER GO?!  Basically my head is spinning.

I feel like things will calm down a little and I'll get a handle on our new routine soon.  Hopefully. Maybe.  Perhaps that will come after we install this wood flooring that's slated to happen this weekend.  It's always something!



To be consumed this week:


Sunday:  Ribs w/ Corn Pudding and Bacon Ranch Potato Salad

Monday:  Going away party for my friend, I brought Feta Dip to share; Pizza for the fam

Tuesday:  Fish Tacos

Wednesday:  BLATs with Fruit

Thursday:  Leftovers

Friday & Saturday:  Out

Week of August 16th

Last week was quite a momentous week for us.

Earlier in the week we were able to fit in some play time with friends.  We have been trying to make that happen as much as possible as everyone will be in school very soon and on various schedules.  It will be much more challenging to get the kids together to play.

At COSI's Farm Days

Friday brought the big day, Jack's first day of Kindergarten!  Jack was beyond excited!

Tuesday afternoon we went in for an open house at Jack's new school and we were able to tour his new classroom, drop off school supplies, and meet his teacher.  Later, Mark asked him how the open house went and Jack said it was, "trucktastic!", which is pretty much the highest honor bestowed by Jack.

The night before his first day of school Jack was so excited he could hardly sleep, I was in tears thinking about putting my baby on a bus and sending him off to school for the day!  I'm happy for him and his new adventures and proud of his enthusiasm, but it is such a shift in dynamic for me!  It's quite different sending your child off to school for 2 1/2 hours at a time 2 or 3 days a week, the way we have for the last 2 years of preschool, and sending your child on a bus with a packed lunch for a full day of school!

After spending the last 5 1/2 years together it's strange not having him around for the majority of the day. It's strange thinking about other people having such a big impact on Jack's day-to-day life. It's weird not having both kids with me all day, them being able to play together, going places all together, eating together. It was pretty quiet around here on Friday. It's nice that Molly and I will get this time together, one-on-one.  She's never had that the way Jack had for his first (nearly) 3 years of life before Molly came along.

AND, as evidenced by the school bus picture above, Jack talked me into his riding the bus to school. I had planned to drive him back and forth to school, but he insisted upon riding the bus.  Insisted!  He was sad about not being able to ride and it was the thing he was most looking forward to about school so I relinquished a little control (not easy for me!) and encouraged his independence by allowing him to ride the bus as he preferred :(

Jack had a great first day of school and is looking forward to his return on Wednesday of this week when he will begin his regular, every day school schedule.  Because they do a staggered start for kindergartners he only attends one day during the first five days of school.

Shortly after Jack arrived home from his first day of school we headed out to the closing of the sale of our home. That's right, we sold our house!

I haven't talked about the fact that we were under contract/sold our house because in my mind, it's not a done deal until the final paperwork is signed.  Because of that, it has been a stressful 6 weeks! (On top of a stressful 5 months, which is really when this journey began.)

We listed our house for sale by owner (stresssssful!) on a Monday leading up to the July 4th holiday weekend.  We didn't get a whole lot of inquiries on it, but we did have one showing on Thursday of that week.  The lack of inquiries/traffic was scary and disheartening, but we did suspect it being a holiday week had something to do with it.

Fast-forward to the following week and we had tons of inquiries on the property!  We did 2 more showings and received two offers!  We negotiated and signed the paperwork to accept one of the offers and officially went under contract 2 weeks after we had listed!  Then we had weeks of dealing with the inspection (and more negotiating), appraisal, waiting to hear the final word on a closing date, moving the last few items that were still hanging around including our playset which takes some organization, etc. SO STRESSFUL!

On Friday afternoon, we took one final walk through, snipped a few cuttings from our hydrangea bush that I love (I'm hoping to grow some at our new house from the cuttings!  I don't exactly have a green thumb so we'll see how that works out :/ ) and then went to sign the paperwork, collect our pitiful check (but hey, we actually got SOME money out of the sale, we were prepared to have to bring money to the table), and hand over our keys.

It's bittersweet.  On one hand I am SO SOOOOOOO happy to be done with that chapter of our lives. The weight of this whole house buying/selling/owning more than one property was a lot to bear.  Not to mention we have been preparing for this move in one way or another for yeeeeaaaaaars now.  Years.  There was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears that went into the sale of that house and it hasn't been our home for several months now, even before our actual move, really, considering the packing and preparing that went on.

At the same time, I'm a little sad to close the book on that chapter of our lives.  That was our home for nearly 9 years.  When we bought that house we weren't even engaged yet.  That house saw us get engaged, married, and bring home two babies.  It was home.

It's also exciting to move on to a new chapter.  Being on the other side of this mess makes me feel even more grateful that we made the move and put in all that work.  It was worth it in the end.  It still doesn't quite feel like home here, but I know that it will eventually.  We have lots of work ahead of us until it will feel as much like home as our old house, but we have time (and space!  So much more space!)

Closing out our eventful week (or two days, really...), Saturday we went and bought me a new car!

Say hello to mom car 2.0

The purchase was planned-ish.  I've been putting off buying a new car for a while now.  My old car is very clearly reaching the end of it's life and I've just been pretending that it's not because that's what I do when I don't want to deal with things until I have to.  Obviously we have been trying to avoid major purchases considering the house situation.  Well, some expensive repairs came up and we weren't about to sink more money into the car so it was time.  We've been shopping for a few weeks (and I've been borrowing my mom's car!) and Saturday we brought this pretty Dodge Charger home to stay.  Yay!

So yeah, we've had just a few things going on.  I'm hoping that's the end of excitement around here for a while.  I (and our poor savings account) need some time to recover and settle in with the changes we have had.


Here's what we're eating this week:


Sunday:  Grilled Hot Dogs with Sweet Corn and Watermelon

Monday:  BBQ Chicken Quinoa Salad

Tuesday:  Grilled Chicken Fajitas

Wednesday:  Caprese Panzanella Salad

Thursday:  Leftovers

Friday & Saturday: Out


I'm linked at Menu Plan Monday hosted by OrgJunkie.com

Week of August 9th

We had a super busy week last week!  I tried to fit in lots of fun since it was our last full week of summer vacation before school starts.  Mid-week we made it to the park to play with friends.

Jack and his little friend Will have been meeting at that park for playdates since they were about 4 months old!

Friday and Saturday I attended a virtual conference with friends.

Lots of doulas in one room!  It was educational and fun, but I felt like I was gone all weekend!

While I was away Mark (along with some family and friends, who made it possible) finally got our swingset moved over to the new house!  Woot!

The first part of summer was SO rainy that we didn't really miss the swingset or have a good opportunity to move it.  It has been nice the last 2 weeks or so, so it has been greatly missed.  So happy to have it over here!

Sunday we did a lot of running around, which made Monday come up super quickly!

This week we're gearing up for back to school (acckk!).  Today we went school supply shopping, tomorrow there's a meet the teacher open house, now that we actually know Jack's room/teacher assignment.  Thursday there's a parent meeting for "curriculum night", whatever that is, and then Jack's first day of school will actually be Friday!

Jack is *SO* excited about his police car lunch box!  I tried to talk him out of it because it's a funny shape and therefore hard to pack, but he was set on it so we'll make it work!

Our district does a staggered start for Kindergartners for the first 5 days of school so he will attend on Friday and then not again until next Wednesday when he will begin his regular schedule.  He is also insistent upon riding the bus, which I'm not feeling super happy about.  I was planning to take him to and from school, but he is really sticking with wanting to ride the bus so we'll see what happens :(

I am so not ready for him to be in Kindergarten, but he sure is!  Ultimately, that's what matters!

It's been a really busy few weeks for me, but luckily the next 2ish weeks should be a little slower.  Of course I say this while I have 500+ square feet of wood flooring waiting to be installed.  It's all relative at this point!

Here's what we'll be eating this week:


Sunday:  Grabbed a late dinner

Monday:  BLATs with Fruit

Tuesday:  Grilled Lemon Garlic Chicken with Orzo Salad with Tomatoes, Basil, and Feta

Wednesday:  Grilled Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches with Baked Ranch Potato Wedges

Thursday:  Leftovers

Friday & Saturday: Out


I'm linked at Menu Plan Monday hosted by OrgJunkie.com

Week of August 2nd

Zoombezi lunch break

Last week the weather was nice (no rain! sun!), but hot, so we had some water fun.  Early in the week the kids and I visited Zoombezi Bay for the first time.  We went with a few friends and the kids had a BLAST! On Friday afternoon I had the unique privilege of sneaking away without kids and returning with just my friends.  It was so much fun and they even got me on some water slides (Eek!)

And some at home pool fun

We're trying to soak up as much summer as possible considering it's already August (HOW?!) With school starting in a little more than a week (so soon!) and the first part of summer monopolized by moving + rain, rain, and more rain, it seems like we haven't had the opportunity to really enjoy much of summer.  Now I feel pressure to maximize what's left, but that kind of pressure kind of negates the relaxed feel that summer should be all about.

Little to no progress was made on the house this week.  We're to the point where most everything is unpacked, but every room still feels like it's in disarray.  I don't know if it's the sporadic boxes or because not one room feels fully put together, but it's annoying because I don't know exactly how to make things feel settled.  We're trying to finalize plans for flooring on the first floor right now. Maybe once that is completed things will feel a little more finished and homey.


Menu for the week:


Sunday:  Grilled Burgers with Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Monday:  Salmon with Strawberry Avocado Salsa with Garlic Green Beans

Tuesday:  Grilled Summer Vegetable Chopped Salad

Wednesday:  Tostadas

Thursday:  Leftovers

Friday & Saturday:  Out


I'm linked at Menu Plan Monday at OrgJunkie.com