Destinations Diva

I grew up Cajun eating a carb heavy diet.  We had rice with almost every meal and often potato salad served along with rice.  It's no wonder that I love mayonnaise based salads-chicken salad, shrimp salad, tuna salad and especially potato salad.  Potato salad was always served with gumbo but also as a barbecue side and it's great with baked ham.   I've thought about substitutions for poataoes in this salad.  Most cooks these days would lean toward cauliflower and I do like riced cauliflower as a dinner side--NEVER in gumbo!  However, cauliflower does not do the trick for this salad.  One day I remembered an old brunch salad recipe using ranch dressing as the base:  Pea Salad.  This salad used thawed frozen peas with ranch dressing and cashews and it was delicious.   This got me thinking, would peas be a good sub for potatoes?  Visually, absolutely not.  Anyone opposed to "green things" would surely neve...

It's always a struggle to stay healthy and cook meals that are easy but still have taste.  I'm not the type of person who can eat chicken breast day after day.  I grew up on a Cajun diet of rice served with every meal and gravies to top it off.  My mother had a large crew to cook for and she had to do it on a dime.  We had a lot of chicken and carbs to say the least. Now when I cook, I try to please my hubby who wants the traditional meals but I just don't have the will power to cook for him and pass it up.  Therefore, I've developed a style of cooking which has a little more flavor and a give and take of fats and carbs. Here's what I will allow myself--boneless skinless chicken thighs!  The meat of chicken thighs is so much more succulent that the breast.  If cooked correctly, every bite has a bit of decadence!  I have been known to purchase frozen chicken thighs, but fresh or really best.   While doing my weekly grocery haul, I pi...