This is a Panera-styled salad, with a delightfully creamy dressing that compliments it perfectly.
For the salad you can use any base you wish. I used equal parts lettuce and cole slaw mix, sprinkled with seedless grapes, extra sharp cheddar cheese, and sliced strawberries. I meant to throw walnuts in, and I forgot! But they would have been lovely crunch.
The chicken was done with the Cornell Barbecue Sauce,
and slow-grilled while I was cleaning the yard....
and it was a mess with old winter nonsense.... and last year's toys. But just enough time for the chicken to cook beautifully with me slathering the sauce every few minutes.
The dressing... now this is the key to this salad. You can use a regular raspberry vinaigrette or something along those lines, but this is a marvelous blend I came up with when we had a half container of honey walnut cream cheese after Easter.
Berry Cream Cheese Dressing
1/2 cup Honey Walnut Cream Cheese
1 Tablespoon Berry Jam (I used Very Berry, but Raspberry or another blend would work fine)
1/2 cup orange juice
Put cream cheese and jam in a small mixing bowl. Heat until soft, 30-40 seconds on my setting. Blend well. Blend in orange juice.
Serve over salad.
And here is the final dish, low-carb and absolutely amazingly delicious!
I stumbled onto this idea for the salad dressing when I made a salad last month, and it's wonderful for a sweet-and-savory salad. Most sweetish dressings are vinegar-based, but this rivals every one of them!
We've got planting going full steam ahead.... and cute kids everywhere I look! And almost done with new chicken coop... but I keep getting interrupted, and that's not a bad thing if it's a cute baby doing the interruptions!
