chicken salad

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 large apple, cored and diced
• 2 stalks of celery, chopped fine
• unseasoned sliced almonds
• adobo
• cumin
• mayonnaise
• Dijon mustard

Season chicken with adobo, cook until done, then chop into small pieces. In large bowl combine cooled chicken, apple, and celery with about two tablespoons each of mayonnaise and mustard. Season with a couple of shakes of cumin and 1 or 2 shakes of adobo. If salad appears too dry, add equal amounts of mayo and mustard until desired consistency is reached. Serve on your favorite bread with fresh greens or on top of a fresh salad.

The dish: Although they're stories for a different time, there were two separate weeks of my life where I lived on nothing but store bought chicken salad. Eat one thing for a week straight and you'll be amazed at how much of an expert you become on that dish. While tasty, I always found the bought stuff to be a little lacking in flavor and usually dripping with too much mayonnaise. I'm pretty sure I'm past the point of eating any one thing straight for a week, but I don't mind making a big batch of this as the unique flavors can be enjoyed for a while. Like tuna the longer this sits the better it becomes.

green beans almondine

• 1 pound fresh green beans, caps snapped off
• sliced almonds, unseasoned
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1/4 lemon

Boil green beans in large pot for 4 minutes or until cooked but still crisp. Drain and rinse with cold water (to stop them from cooking further). Saute almonds in butter for three minutes over medium high flame. Add green beans, squeeze juice of lemon over mixture, and toss to combine. Serve immediately.

The dish: Two keys here: 1. Make sure that the green beans are cooked, but not too much. You want them to be firm with a snap and a bright green color. 2. As always, fresh lemon juice is imperative. That bottle in the fridge is OK for emergencies or when baked into a dish with many ingredients, but with so little going on in this dish you want to make sure that each component shines. No matter what the label says, that stuff in the bottle is not made with real lemons, it's made with some crazy chemicals in a plant along the Jersey turnpike that looks like it should be producing something much different than food flavorings.

Israeli couscous salad

• 2 cups Israeli couscous, cooked
• 1/3 cup dried cranberries
• 1/3 cup sliced almonds
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
• kosher salt
• white pepper

In a large pot bring 2.5 cups of water to a boil, add couscous, reduce heat to a simmer, cover and cook until tender, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, whisk together juice, oil and vinegar. When couscous is cooked add mixture and season with salt and pepper. If mixture is too dry, add more of the liquids. Serve cold.

The dish: Israeli couscous is a funky little ball of almost pasta that has a really unique consistency. This salad is basically a rip off of one that Hannaford sells in the warmer months. This is the first batch I've made and I kind of winged the recipe, and it's quite good but truthfully, Hanny's is better. I'll remake this a few times before salad season gets into full swing and see if we can't surpass the goodness from the deli counter.