Barbecue Chicken and Roasted Corn Salad

Marinade and Dressing:

1/4 cup lime juice

2 tbsp Sweet & Smoky Barbecue Rub (Pampered Chef)

2 garlic cloves, pressed

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup vegetable oil

Chicken and Salad:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

1 tsp vegetable oil

2 cups fresh corn kernels (4-6 ears)

1/2 medium red bell pepper

1/4 cup diced red onion

1/2 cup canned black beans, drained and rinsed

2 cups julienne-cut jicama strips

1. For marinade and dressing, combine lime juice, barbecue rub, garlic, cumin, and salt in a bowl. Slowly add oil, whisking until well blended. For chicken, cut into thin strips and place in resealable plastic bag; add 1/4 cup marinade. Seal bag; turn to coat. Marinade in refridgerator 30-60 minutes. Cover remaining marinade and refridgerate to use as dressing.


2. Heat oil in large pan (grill pan, if available) over medium heat 5 minutes. Add corn, bell pepper and onion; spread evenly over bottom of pan. Cook without stirring 5 minutes or until grill marks appear on vegetable. Remove vegetable mixture to large heatsafe bowl with lid. Increase heat to medium-high. Remove chicken from marinade; discard marinade. Cook chicken 5-7 minutes or until no longer pink, turning occasionally. Remove from heat.


3. Add chicken, black beans and reserved dressing to vegetable mixture; toss to coat. Cover; refridgerate about 2 hours or until chilled. For each serving, arrange jicama on serving plate. Top with salad. Serve with tortilla chips, if desired.

Recipe from Spin on Salads by The Pampered Chef

THINGS I CHANGED:

As always, I didn't read the recipe carefully enough, and I put all the marinade into the bag. There wasn't much to throw away when I put the chicken in the pan to cook, though, so it was fine.

I also didn't have cumin, so I substituted dried ground orange peel. Not a comparable substitution, I realize, but I like orange. This also was just fine.

I don't have a grill pan, so my veggies didn't get a blackened, grilled look to them. They tasted just fine without it. I also don't have a julienne cutter, so I used my crinkle blade on the mandoline and cut the crinkle jicama chips into strips. This worked really well.

THINGS I LEARNED:

This was the scariest recipe I've done in a long time. Scary because it took a lot of effort on a very hot day without air conditioning in my kitchen and because I was really unsure whether any of us would like the result. Also, none of us had really ever had jicama before, so I was a bit concerned that that would be an issue. Neither of those concerns were valid because the recipe was amazing. So I learned to be brave.

I also learned that if you really want to blacken vegetables without burning them, a flat-bottom pan probably isn't the best choice. I didn't have another choice, but there it is.

OVERALL OPINIONS:

Bill: I was most concerned about Bill liking the recipe, and he was concerned, too. He told me he was really worried that he'd have to put on a happy face when it tasted like garbage because he knew I'd worked hard in a very hot kitchen to make it. He loved it, though. I think he had three helpings, if you count Georgia's plate.

Emma: My adventurous eater didn't disappoint. "Can we have jicama every day as a snack?" she asked. She really liked it, and did a good job mostly cleaning her plate. She asked for additional jicama halfway through.

Georgia: I'm not sure she tried any of it. The photo above is her plate. It might be that it just looked too weird for her, and it might be that she had just woken up from a nap:

Me: I really enjoyed it, too. I had two helpings. I also ate it for lunch the next day. I will definitely be making this again. Maybe next time on a day that isn't so incredibly hot. :)