Rachel's Chicken Salad

I was thinking about what to have for dinner tonight and I was thinking about the contents of my fridge, freezer and pantry. I didn't want something cooked...I wanted something fresh, with a crunch, that ruled out the pantry, unless I wanted to eat raw spaghetti. I thought about the contents of my freezer and I remembers we had some frozen chicken breasts. I thought "Wouldn't a chicken salad be great?" So, I pulled out my package of chicken breasts, which I had foolishly frozen them all together, and began thawing them at about 2:00 this afternoon. I began looking for recipes on all my favorite websites. I love allrecipes.com, recipezaar.com and the foodnetwork.com because they all have ratings and reviews and usually some good revisions to the recipes. I don't like cooks.com for that very reason. The recipe I found was on foodnetwork.com and it was similar to the taste I was looking for, here's the link: Almond Chicken Salad by Paula Deen but, it didn't have enough roughage! I wanted more flavors than just celery and almond and chicken. So, I got thinking, what makes good food....a little sweet and a little spicy! This is what I came up with!!!

Rachel's Chicken Salad

• 1/2 c. mayo
• 1/4 c. light mayo
• 1/2 tb. lemon juice
• 1 c. grapes, cut in half
• 1/4-1/2 red onion
• 3 ribs of celery, finely diced
• 2 c. chicken, shredded
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/2 c. slivered almonds
  

First boil the chicken w/ some salt, to taste and the garlic powder. When cooked shred with with two forks and spread out on a cutting board to cool, you can place this in the fridge until it's cool. in a bowl, combine the mayo's and lemon juice. Add the grapes, celery, almonds (I tried toasting my almonds in the oven while I was chopping the veggies, but I didn't keep a close enough eye on them and they burned...so I added the rest of the package just as is. I'm sure toasting them adds a wonderful depth of flavor, maybe next time.) and shredded chicken and combine. You can serve in on rolls, croissants, or any type of bread you want. I had mine on lettuce leaves like a lettuce wrap, which was a nice crisp refreshing change, but it was really messy.

In the reviews of Paula Deen's recipe, one person suggested using yogurt as a mayo substitute, and I may try that. I also used 1/2 red onion and it was a little too much, so I'll cut back next time, but it's up to your tastes.