waning days of summer

I’m still eating summer tomatoes on sliced Delicious Orchards English muffin bread with Duke’s mayonnaise. My husband and I are still snacking on cubed watermelon that has been so sweet and delicious this summer. I blanched six ears of New Jersey white sweet corn to have during the cold winter months. Last night, I made grilled peach, romaine, chicken and blue cheese salad.

I found this recipe many years ago in a Penzeys Spice catalogue. Recipes that appear in the catalogue are submitted by Penzeys customers and use their spices and seasonings.

The recipe is done in three parts. Chicken breasts can either be cooked in slow cooker or roasted in a low oven for approximately three hours. I chose the oven method yesterday. The chicken is seasoned with fresh ginger, garlic and salt to taste. What I especially liked about this recipe is that the romaine and peaches are grilled for several minutes giving it lovey charred taste. The grilling brings out the natural sweetness of the peaches. The salad also has sliced red onion, olive oil, blue cheese crumbles and nuts. 

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To bring the salad together it is tossed with a sesame-ginger dressing. The dressing is made with rice or rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, olive oil, honey (or stevia), powdered ginger, fresh ginger, soy sauce and pineapple juice.
I started the chicken in the early afternoon so that it would be done in time for supper. As it was just my husband and I, I cooked two bone-in chicken breasts so that the meat would stay moist. I also found that the chicken was done in about 2-1/2 hours, so make sure you check the chicken at the two hour mark with a thermometer so that you don’t overcook the meat.While the chicken was roasting in the oven, this gave me time to make the salad dressing.

Just before my husband got home from work, I started prepping the salad, onion and peaches for grilling. They only had to cook for 3-4 minutes. The recipe also wanted the chicken tossed on the grill for a few minutes, however, I decided against it as I didn’t want to dry out the meat. Once I had the grilling done it was time to put the salad together.
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The salad came out wonderful. Instead of cashews or sliced almonds, I used toasted walnuts as this is what I had available. The flavor of the dressing in combination with the peaches and blue cheese were different and tasty. I find the sesame seed oil gives the salad dressing an exotic and Asian flare. The savoriness of the blue cheese plays well against the sweetness of the peaches. Overall, my husband and I enjoyed this light and fresh tasting main course salad.