Coming Back Strong!

Hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day, and are enjoying this St. Patty's Day in true Irish fashion-whatever that may be!  I will be celebrating at Food Lion in just a few minutes and then I hope to continue celebrating on a park bench immersed in The Fault in Our Stars.  Afterwards I have a Pure Barre class at 530.  This evening will be centered around the newest episode of Revenge!!

I will have the first recipe in what has felt like (and actually has been)  many many months available for your viewing pleasure in the morning.  Stay tuned-I promise not to leave you hanging  ;)

PS-I updated the About Me page a few minutes ago and plan to get the rest of my blog info up to speed this week also.  Be on the look out for a couple of new tabs on the home page as well!  I'm coming back strong!

Buffalo Chicken Salad

while at work today i was browsing the typical blogs and came upon this recipe on the pw website and i literally could not stop thinking about it all day.  i feel ridiculous admitting that, but it's truth.  so at 439 i headed to walmart for some ingredients.  i decided i couldnt live without it.  

i had some chicken breasts in the freezer from a previous shopping trip. 

 i put them in scalding water as soon as i got home. 

then i got impatient.  so as soon as i could separate them, i added 

one whole breast to a pan with a small amount of olive oil

then i was getting really impatient.  so i covered the chicken to quicken up this whole process.

 if you look really closely at this picture you can see the stack of smoke rising from the pan.

 i thought it was gonna blow.

but it didnt.  phew.

but even the lid wasn't cutting it.  so, i intervened with the knife.  this finally did the trick!  

the chicken browned in no time then!  surface area is key.

once the chicken is no longer pink anywhere, reduce the heat to low 

and add some buffalo sauce-enough to evenly coat each chicken sliver.  

cover and let it simmer for a couple of minutes. 

in the meantime, prepare the salad toppings.

now those of you who know me know that i detest ranch.

but when you have ranch dressing and bleu cheese crumbles, the

ranch instantly tastes like blue cheese dressing.

go figure!

and of course you'll need some lettuce to put all of those goods on!

i recommend romaine or iceburg for that extra crunch.

then you wanna layer the lettuce with chicken, plenty of ranch, and 

tonsssssss of blue cheese crumbles.  

this salad was awesome!  everything i has been waiting for alll day!

it was super spicy though so extra ranch on the side would not be a bad thing!

you know, if you like that stuff.  

i cleansed the palate with a couple scoops of oikos vanilla greek yogurt, 

some homemade granola, and a little honey.  perfection!

i tell you what though, after all that i was so full i thought i'd explode.

so, i watched wheel of fortune (priorities) and then went for a little stroll.

im feeling much better  :)

can you spot the cutest wallybird in the bunch?

that's right. maire was in "hansel and gretel" this wekeend and she 

was none other than a pesky wallybird!