This is a delicious salad: tender chunks of chicken, crisp apple and fresh spinach tossed with a tangy-sweet curry and mango chutney dressing . Yumm!

I didn’t bother stemming the spinach or tearing it into pieces because I thought it was fine as is. I omitted the golden raisins and substituted chopped celery for added crunch (1 large stalk chopped), and substituted cashew pieces for the slivered almonds. I didn’t have green onions so I used chopped red onion instead (green onion would add more color to the dish so I will use it next time). For the dressing, I used olive oil instead of the canola oil. The changes I made were minor and didn’t dramatically alter the salad…they just saved me from having to make a last minute trip to the store.

Spinach Almond Salad with Chicken
-from Albertina’s Exceptional Recipes Cookbook

Serves 6.

2 lbs. spinach leaves, washed and stemmed
3 cups diced cooked chicken breast
2 cups diced red apples, unpeeled
2/3 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup chopped green onions
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
3/4 cup toasted slivered almonds, divided

Dressing:
2 tablespoons mango chutney
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon Tabasco
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
2/3 cup canola oil

Prepare dressing. Place all dressing ingredients, except oil, in a food processor or blender. Mix well. Slowly pour oil through the feed tube while machine is running. This will emulsify the dressing. Refrigerate until used.

Cut or tear the spinach leaves into large bite-sized pieces. Refrigerate.

Combine diced chicken, apple, raisins and green onions with 2/3 cup of the dressing. Mix well and chill.

At serving time, add remaining dressing to spinach. Toss lightly and place on individual serving plates. Sprinkle sesame seeds over greens.

Add 1/2 cup almonds to chicken mixture. Spoon chicken mixture on top of greens and sprinkle remaining almonds on top.

Tags: almond, chicken salad, curry, mango chutney, spinach

Cranberry sauce is a must-have with the traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner. Period. You just can’t have turkey and stuffing without a dollop of cranberry sauce somewhere on the plate. With that said, I still can only eat a few tablespoons of this jam-like condiment at a time. It seems that most people would agree judging by the fact that there’s always leftover cranberry sauce after the Thanksgiving meal. So what do we do with all the leftover cranberry sauce? We use it in a coffee cake.

I did a quick search for a cranberry coffee cake recipe and found this one at kingarthurflour.com. It was just what I was looking for. The only thing I did differently was to use a mixture of sour cream and milk in place of the buttermilk. The cake was moist with a light almond flavor, and went perfectly with a hot cuppa joe. If you don’t like almond-flavored treats then just use the same quantity of vanilla extract (it will be just as good). Although the cake was still tasty on the second day, I thought it was best the day it was baked.

Cranberry-Almond Coffee Cake
-recipe from kingarthurflour.com
 
This moist, golden cake hides a double layer of cranberry sauce and a sprinkling of almonds. It’s a lovely cake for Thanksgiving breakfast; and makes a satisfying autumn dessert, as well. This recipe comes from our James Beard award-winning best-seller, “The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion.”

Cake
1/2 cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) butter
1 cup (7 ounces) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup (8 ounces) buttermilk or yogurt (low-fat is fine)
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups (8 1/2 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (10 3/4 ounces) whole berry cranberry sauce
1/2 cup blanched slivered or sliced almonds, toasted*

Glaze
3/4 cup (3 ounces) confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons (1 ounce) milk
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

*Spread almonds in an ungreased 9″ round cake pan, and bake in a preheated 350°F oven for 8 to 10 minutes, until they’re a light golden brown.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 10-cup (9″ to 9 ½”) tube pan or bundt-style pan.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar till smooth. Beat in the eggs, then the buttermilk or yogurt and almond extract. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl, and beat briefly again, to make sure everything is well combined. Add the baking powder, baking soda, flour, and salt, stirring just to blend. Grease and flour a tube pan. Spoon half of batter into pan. Spread half of cranberry sauce evenly atop batter, then spread remaining batter over that. Top with remaining cranberry sauce, and sprinkle toasted almonds evenly over sauce.

Bake the cake for 55 minutes, tenting it with foil for the final 15 minutes. When it’s done, a cake tester inserted into the thickest part will come out clean, and the top will spring back when you press it gently. Remove the cake from the oven, and cool it in pan for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, turn it out of the pan onto a rack set over a piece of parchment, and stir together the glaze ingredients.

Drizzle the thin glaze over the warm cake. Let the cake cool completely before serving (or serve it warm, if you don’t mind it crumbling a bit!)
Yield: 1 cake, 14 to 16 servings.

I’m linked to:
Homemade for the Holidays

Tags: almond, Baking, bundt, coffee cake, cranberry