Charlene:
I could seriously send you a wad of money right now. Thanks so
much for sending this back to me. I'll make sure to put it into my
permanent cookbook in print I am working on as soon as I make it next
week. Reading my own message made me hungry for it all over again.
Thanks again.
Jon
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Charlene Ota <mailto:caota4@xxxxxxxxx>
*To:* blindcooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:blindcooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:* Thursday, March 19, 2015 3:49 PM
*Subject:* [blindcooks] FW: Awesome main coarse salad
John, that recipe sounded so good to me I had to go on a hunt for
it and check it out again. Here you are and I’m so glad I had it
tucked away in a mail folder.
*From:*blindcooks-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blindcooks-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
[mailto:blindcooks-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *Jon Rawlings
*Sent:* Thursday, July 31, 2014 10:45 AM
*To:* Blind Cooks List
*Subject:* [blindcooks] Awesome main coarse salad
A couple weeks ago, I was enjoying a few precious quiet and
peaceful moments and got to thinking about how I wanted to create
a really good Southwest-style main coarse salad. I have been
doing a lot of grilling over the past month, so I knew that I
wanted grilled chicken as one of the key ingredients. I began
writing down each of the elements of my salad as they came to
mind, and made sure I had those things at hand after returning
home from our latest shopping trip. We had the salad last night,
and it was amazing! The salad consisted of torn romaine lettuce,
chopped tomatoes out of our garden, cucumber, fresh whole cilantro
leaves, corn kernels which I had cooked earlier and cut off the
cob, black beans, chopped scallions, diced avocado, and a few
strips of corn tortillas which I fried until crispy and dusted
lightly with fine salt, and of course, the aforementioned grilled
chicken, which I had dusted with chili powder, a touch of garlic
powder, my special Southwest-style seasoned salt, some ground
cumin, and a bit of smoked paprika before grilling. The dressing
was made from a packet of buttermilk ranch dressing, but I added
some chipotle, cumin, plenty of black pepper, chili powder, and
fresh lime juice. The dressing had a very flavorful kick, but
wasn't too hot at all. The finished salad got a healthy
drizzling of fresh lime juice right before we dug in. Emily paid
me a very high compliment when she said it was as good or better
than any of the salads she likes at a restaurant near our house
called Cafe Rio. I don't know if it's a national chain, but it's
a fast food sort of joint where you go in and watch them put
together your favorite salad or burrito or whatever in assembly
line fashion. It is one of Emily's favorite places to eat when we
have the cash to eat out. She's even wanting to make homemade
flour tortillas to put under the salad like they do at Cafe Rio.
I told her we'd definitely have it at least once more before the
summer was over. I really enjoy it when I can create an entirely
new recipe completely off the top of my head and have it turn out
as well as it did last night. Jon
