Wedding Luncheon

When Charles became engaged, I knew that we would have to provide a luncheon for the family and guests who could come, so I asked him to let me know what he wanted.  He thought about it for the next few days, and he wanted chicken salad sandwiches and salad.  Anything else, he said would be up to me. (He is really big on salads). I wanted to make it nice and have a variety of food, so I came up with this menu:

                Chicken salad sandwiches (Have to get a recipe)
                 Green salad (just as the freeze hit and lettuce became like gold)
                  w/ croutons, sunflower seeds, and choice of 3 dressings
                 Potato salad (Charles and Chris loved this idea)
                 Seafood pasta salad ( My favorite for a special event)
                 Spinach Strawberry salad ( just to round things out)
                 Carrot sticks, celery sticks, olives, pickles
                 cantaloupe, and pineapple
                 Sparkling white grape juice to drink
And dessert - what for dessert?  I came across this dessert recipe  while I was going through some recipe books one day.  I chose it because I could make it a week before and it had chocolate and ice cream.  You can never go wrong with chocolate and ice cream. So, dessert was Frozen Ice Cream Delight  ( thanks TOH magazine). It was the hit of the day and I had requests for the recipe. So here are the recipes for some of the items at the wedding luncheon.  I will give you dessert first, since life is short.

FROZEN ICE CREAM DESSERT
2-1/2 cups cream filled chocolate cookie crumbs, divided
1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 gallon vanilla ice cream, softened (use any flavor you like)
1/2 to 1 cup salted peanuts
1 carton (8 ozs.) frozen whipped topping, thawed
CHOCOLATE SAUCE:
2 cups confectioners sugar
2/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 can (12 ozs.)evaporated milk
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 tsp. vanilla extract
     Combine 2 cups cookie crumbs with butter and sugar.  Press into the bottom of a 9X13 pan.  Freeze for 15 minutes.  Spread ice cream over crumbs; freeze until firm, about 3 hours.  Meanwhile, combine first four sauce ingredients in a sauce pan; bring to a boil. Boil for 8 minutes.  Remove from the heat and stir in vanilla; allow to cool to room temperature ( I stirred it while it was cooling.  Try not stirring it while cooling and see if it freezes harder).  Spoon sauce over ice cream; sprinkle with nuts.  Freeze until firm.  Spread whipped topping over nuts and sprinkle with remaining cookie crumbs. Freeze at least 3 hours before serving. Can be stored in the freezer for a up to a week.  Yield 12-16 servings.

There were a couple of requests for the seafood salad. So here it is:

SEAFOOD PASTA SALAD
1 lb. imitation crab ( if you like real crab, use it. We like the imitation because it has a milder flavor.)
1 (24 0z.) package of large shell macaroni
1 package of celery roughly chopped, leaves and all
1 1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup lemon juice ( Fresh is best, but the concentrate is just fine.)
1 Tbsp. onion powder ( you can adjust to taste)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Cook, drain and cool pasta according to the directions on the package. Chop celery roughly. Chop crab roughly. In a smaller bowl, combine sour cream, mayo, lemon juice and onion powder.  Pour over pasta, crab and celery. Add salt and pepper. Combine thoroughly and chill.

Now for the chicken salad.  This recipe is for 50 small croissants.  Good for a crowd.  I doubled it for the luncheon and there was plenty.
15 cooked and cut up chicken breasts
1 cup chopped celery
2 Tbsp grated or minced onion ( I grated it and added 1 Tbsp onion powder.  If you don't like onion, don't add the onion powder)
2 cup mayonnaise
4 cup whipping cream
1 (8oz.) pkg. cream cheese
sliced almonds ( I didn't add these, but it would be very good)
2 Tbsp chicken broth paste
1 tsp. salt ( or to taste)
1/8 tsp. pepper ( or to taste)
Mix together whipping cream and softened cream cheese until cream peaks.  Add onions, mayonnaise, broth, salt and pepper.  Mix well. Add remaining ingredients.  Will make salad filling for 50 small croissants.

SPARKLING WHITE GRAPE JUICE
2 cans frozen concentrate White Grape Cocktail Juice, slightly thawed
1 1/2 liters club soda
ice
Combine slightly thawed juice with club soda.  Pour over ice.

Spanish Chicken and Rice

I was hankering for a chicken and rice dinner, and although I love chicken and broccoli with rice, I wanted something different.  I hopped on to Allrecipes.com and found this recipe .  We did have to go to the store to pick up the tumeric, since our spice cabinet is a little sparse since it was cleaned out, and we needed more rice, and some chicken base to make broth.  Everything else we had at home.  it was easy to put together.  I couldn't find our gallon size storage bags, so I patted the chicken dry, sprinkled it with salt and pepper, then lightly dredged it in flour instead of shaking it up in the bag.  I used a mixture of butter and oil to brown the chicken instead of just butter and I used colored bell peppers (instead of green) since we had some leftovers from the night we made fajitas.  Steve really liked it, expecially the chicken, which I will use more of next time because it went fast.  I liked it because it was something new but the flavor of tumeric was not really strong or super exotic.  Beware though, it does stain things yellow, so be careful.

Another night this week, we tried broiled broccoli.  Chris and I saw it on a TV show last week and thought it looked tasty. Cut some fresh broccoli into some bite size florets with part of the stem and spread it out on a baking sheet.  Toss it with some oil (vegatable, canola, or olive), just enough to coat.  Sprinkle with some coarse salt.  Place under the broiler until the broccoli starts to brown and is at desired tenderness (I like mine quite crisp).  Pull out of the oven and sprinkle with lemon juice.  I like how broiling it carmelizes the broccoli a bit, so it's not so bitter.  This got both Chris and Ro to eat their veggies.