INGREDIENTS
1 can (15 ounces) pineapple chunks
4 cups cooked chicken, diced
1 can (11 ounces) mandarin oranges, drained
1 can (8 ounces) sliced water chestnuts, drained
1 package (2 & 1/2 ounces) sliced, toasted almonds
1 cup celery, chopped
1 cup seedless grapes, cut in half
1 & 1/2 cups mayonnaise
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 can (3 ounces) chow mein noodles
Lettuce leaves
DIRECTIONS
Drain pineapples, reserving two tablespoons of juice. Combine pineapple, chicken, oranges, chestnuts, almonds, celery and grapes in a bowl and mix well. Combine reserved juice, mayonnaise, soy sauce and curry powder and add to chicken mixture. Chill. Stir in noodles before serving on lettuce leaves. Serves 8.
This recipe was a first-place recipe winner from the 2005 Catholic Exponent cookbook contest. It was printed in the At Our Table cookbook.
Reflection by Annetta Sweetko, Senior Designer at The Catholic Echo (formerly production director at The Catholic Exponent).
Recipes can be very complex or very simple, but the result is always something amazing. This recipe, Fruited Chicken Salad, is simple, yet complex, because of the many ingredients that don’t seem to fit together. Do pineapple, chestnuts, mandarin oranges, grapes, celery and chicken really go together? Looking at them separately, you might not think so, but put together properly with everything else on the list, they make a tasty dish that will become a family favorite.
Our daily lives can be much like a recipe, and the result is up to us. Life can sometimes feel overwhelming—much too complicated and with too many ingredients. The ingredients of life can be financial worries, things going wrong—even just something to do with house repairs, a broken heart, sorrows and losses—but with a little faith and a lot of prayer, everything works out. Maybe not as planned but in the end probably better than we could have expected.
I have found that I often eliminate ingredients that do not please me in a recipe—to make it more suitable to my family’s tastes. I believe that we can do that when life gets too complicated. It might be time to pare down the ingredients that are weighing you down. Give those things to God and make him the heart of your life. He is the best ingredient for the recipe of life.
