Chicken Salad and Picnics

Currently my favorite trick for making chicken salad is to throw cooked chicken breasts into my Kitchen Aid mixer with the consumers and let it do the work. It may seem a little over kill for making chicken salad for two, but with Little Man and having to do these types of things during naptime, it is a lifesaver.

Today we are meeting Paul at one of the local playground for lunch, and instead of buying lunch, we decided to pack. Last night Paul cooked up the chicken. Quite frankly I have no idea what he did to the chicken other than com it in the same getting pan that he used to cook the Italian sausage for tonight's dinner. We put it in the fridge overnight and this morning I pulled it out and the it into the mixer.

Also in the midst goes mayo and some Dijon mustard with white wine. Use whatever you like and the amount of each you like, but I never measure and just go by look.

Then comes the fun part, letting the mixer do it's thing. I do find that when the chicken is warm it sheds a little easier, but like to make my chicken salad from child chicken. In approximately 1 minute, two chicken breasts went from being while to nicely shredded.

At this point I would add in more mayo if it looked to dry as well as celery and onion, but we don't have those in the house at the moment, so into the fridge it goes, to cool and allow the flavors to do their thing. Right before we leave I will add in some shredded cabbage for that crunch.

To complete our lunch I sliced up some cucumber to do in salad dressing, grabbed a handful of sugar snap peas to do the same thing, and made pudding with blueberries. I my humble opinion a picnic is not complete without chips, so in the bag those go too.

It is not often that Paul and I get to meet for lunch. They grown upon us leaving the building for lunch frown the school year, so during the summer we try to meet at least one a week, and this summer, due to a tighter budget, we are having to become more creative with what we do for lunch. I know that at this age Little Man is not going to remember having lunch with Daddy, but it is a price I think is important to start now, instead of having to try to start it in a couple years when he will remember.

**Our picnic was a huge success.  We managed to find a table in the shade, under a beautiful tree and enjoyed our lunch.  Before Paul arrived, Little Man enjoyed some time on the swing.  He loves to swing now that he is big enough to sit up on his own, and he just soaks in everything that is going on around him.