Recipes by Zola

For You Monday August 1, 2011

Chinese-American Chicken Salad... Chinese-American Chicken Salad  Zola Gorgon Edible Education... Used to be that if you picked anything from a public garden you could get yourself arrested. It’s not always that way these days. I don’t recommend you start picking things from your local public garden, but in some cases you can participate in what’s going on in the garden and be able to “consume” your education. Take Chicago for example. In Chicago you can go to the Regenstein Garden and attend a chef series. They do cooking demos with items from the garden. Herbs can be ornamental one day and then they might find themselves as a feature in a sauce. Gale Gand, pastry chef extraordinaire gives cooking demos at the Regenstein Garden and then she offers up the recipes to go with the discussions. Check out www.chicagobotanic.org. Live in Atlanta? There they have an old parking lot that is now a garden with an outdoor kitchen. Local chefs do cooking classes. YUM.www.atlantabotanicalgarden.org. Here’s a cute one. In New Orleans they have a new city program that educates kids about how to plant and tend a vegetable garden. They get to do tastings too! I got my early start with this helping my mother tend the rhubarb patch. We had tomato plants out back of the house too. I’ll also never forget the year my brother dug up the area behind the garage and planted potatoes! I don’t recall eating one potato but I do remember the potato patch. www.neworleanscitypark.com. One more. In San Francisco there’s a place called Arcimboldo’s Edible Garden. What a great name. Arcimboldo was a 16th century painter. I bet he never envisioned his name on a garden, although he specialized in doing portraits made out of fruits, vegetable, etc. it’s something you have to see to believe. Quite creative. Google Guiseppe Arcimboldo and read all about him. You can go to the Arcimboldo Garden and take a cooking class or watch a cooking demo. www.sfbotanicalgarden.org. And if you live anywhere near Mason City, IA, I’ll be appearing August 8th and 9th. I’ll be making three presentations. Two of them will be for people who want to hear about Plan Z. We have so many Plan Z dieters in that area I suspect we’ll have a full house of current dieters bringing along those of their friends and family who are interested. And in the evening, I will be doing a presentation that is designed as a networking event for current Plan Z dieters. We are calling it ZSocial. It’s going to be fun. If you are interested in any of them, you can call Three Eagles Communications at 641-423-1300 or check out www.planzdiet.com/HarryO. So much of the country is under a heat wave. It’s nice to have another healthy option for a cool meal. Try out this chicken salad. It will give you an opportunity to dine on some of those herbs you might have growing in your garden. And if you don’t have them growing at your place head on down to your local farmer’s market and pick some up. Fresh from the garden. Chinese-American Chicken Salad Serves 4 Ingredients: 4, 4-6 oz chicken breasts, cooked and shredded or chopped 1/3 cup of water chestnuts, drained and rinsed. Cut into dice ½ cup of thinly sliced baby bok choy (light green and white parts only) 1 cup of drained mandarin orange segments ½ cup of diced onion 1 tsp of minced basil 1 tsp of minced parsley For the dressing: 2 tsp of Worcestershire sauce ½ cup of Dijon mustard 3 Tbl of Bragg’s aminos 2 tsp of Truvia (Stevia. Sugar substitute) 2 tsp or more of fresh minced ginger Directions: Put all of the chicken salad items in a large bowl. Put all of the dressing ingredients in a small bowl and stir to blend. Then pour the dressing over the chicken salad and stir. I serve this over shredded lettuce to make a larger salad. The chicken salad can be transported. Keep chilled. You’ll notice in the picture I garnished the salad with a couple of cherry tomato halves.