Two Dinner Salads

Today for dinner, I had Tomato and Mozzarella Salad, and some Avocado Chicken Salad. Since Travis is in South Carolina, I am taking full advantage of the situation to eat foods he finds completely disgusting.


I realize it doesn't look all that appetizing (my food photography skills may require a little work), but it was actually quite delicious.

Tomato Mozzarella Salad is easy - just toss some tomatoes with olive oil, red wine vinegar, basil, salt and pepper. It's best if you let it chill a little, but not absolutely necessary. You can use whole tomatoes and a whole piece of fresh mozzarella and slice them, but I like to cut some grape tomatoes in half and use little baby mozzarella balls. Either way is fine. Definitely use fresh mozzarella though, from the deli section. You can tell, it'll be really soft, not like the weird kind over by the ricotta and refrigerated pasta.

The Avocado Chicken Salad is a really long recipe that you can find here. In the salad, I used half mayonnaise and half sour cream instead of all mayo. I also used a bit less avocado in the salad, but the full amount in the dressing. I tend to prefer avocado pureed or mashed rather than in chunks. I feel like the dressing is really the best part. Things like this make me so happy to own a food processor.

Even though it's salad for dinner, I wouldn't go around thinking this is overly healthy. The nutritional value of Paula Deen's recipes is rarely posted, but I once saw her make this salad on TV and heard her say that she had never much cared for avocados until she found out they were fattening!