Like it when I get Creative!

It's hotter than "hell" today.  I can say that because at noon the temperature was already above 90 degrees per my car's exterior ambient temperature gage and climbing.  Local F/B friends have indicated they've reached over 100 degrees per their cars gages!

When it is hot like this I don't like to eat.  The appetite sort of disappears.  I also hate going to the grocery store.  I have this silly notion in my head that I hate to "spend money on food".  Not sure where this insane notion came from but I've always hated going grocery shopping mostly because I hated spending money for groceries - which explains why I weighed 90 lbs when living alone in my early 30s!  And also explains why I make my husband do most of the grocery shopping!

Today I felt like making a light dinner - was going to suggest going out to dinner until I used my new car door opener and it dawned on me that we spent a boat load of money on a new garage door opener since ours crapped out completely yesterday.  If that wasn't enough to change my mind on going out to dinner, I got the mail and 6 out of 7 envelopes were bills from the Cleveland Clinic.  Sigh!  So I had to think what could we eat for dinner that won't heat up the house or require us to fire up the grill outside in this incredible heat.  Then I thought .... "Chicken Salad".

So on our way home from the pool today, we stopped in my least favorite store, the grocery store, and purchased the needed items for chicken salad.  I typically put "grapes" in my chicken salad.   I'm the only one that eats grapes these days so I didn't want to purchase anymore since we have some already.  When I got home I opened up the "fruit" drawer and went to grab some grapes and they were all decorated with fuzzy green.  Yep, they became a science experiment!

So there goes my fabulous idea for chicken salad.  Then I saw the bing cherries and ran to the computer and looked to see if there was a recipe that included "bing cherries".  I stumbled through some of them, and finally settled upon a recipe that I thought I could improvise without making a horrific concoction.

I assembled the ingredients and "BAM", I made a pretty good tasting chicken salad if I should say so myself!  I'm so impressed with my creativity that I'm going to share my recipe and call it the 

Colleen Hyman Bing Cherry Chicken Salad!

• 1 lb of boneless, skinless chicken breast boiled until fully cooked.  Dice chicken into small bite size pieces.
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup of diced red onion
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup of diced celery
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup of pitted and diced fresh bing cherries
• add dried basil to taste
• add 1/2 cup (or to taste) of mayonnaise
• 1/2 teaspoon of keylime juice
• 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
• In a large bowl combine all ingredients and refrigerate for at least an hour
• Serve over lettuce as a salad or on a roll or bread as a sandwich!

Let me know if you indulge yourself in trying this recipe and how it turns out and if you like it.

I thought it was pretty darn awesome!  I was excited that the "bing cherries" actually tasted good in the salad!   Hope you will too!