Mandarin Pasta Chicken Salad

I recently had a pampered chef party and we made this salad, it was so wonderful everyone was asking for the recipe.  About a week later I needed to make dinner for our sister missionaries and seeing as how it was still 100 degrees outside I thought this would be perfect, it was it definitely did not disappoint!  I got the recipe from the pampered chef consultant.

Mandarin Pasta Chicken Salad Recipe

Mandarin Pasta Salad
Dressing
1 tspn. Finely chopped, peeled, fresh gingerroot
1 garlic clove, pressed
1/3 cup rice vinegar or white wine vinegar
¼ cup orange juice
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 envelope Lipton Onion Soup Mix
2 teaspoons sugar

Salad
8 ounces uncooked bow tie pasta
½ cucumber, scored, seeded and sliced
½ cup diced red bell pepper
½ cup chopped red onion
1 package (6 ounces) fresh baby spinach leaves
1 can (11 ounces) mandarin orange segments, drained
2 cups diced, cooked chicken
½ cup sliced almonds

1. For dressing, finely chop gingerroot. Whisk gingerroot, pressed garlic, vinegar, orange juice, oils, soup mix and sugar together in small bowl. Refrigerate until ready to use.
2. For salad, cook pasta according to directions, drain and rinse under cold running water. Meanwhile, score cucumber using Lemon/Zester/Scorer. Remove seeds. Slice cucumbers and cut slices in half. Dice bell pepper. Chop onion. Add cucumber, bell pepper, onion, spinach, mandarin oranges, chicken and almonds to pasta. Pour dressing over salad and toss. Serve immediately.

Honey and soy sauce salmon

We eat salmon at least once a week and I get tired of eating it with lemon juice and lemon pepper seasoning so tonight I made it this way:

39. Honey Soy Salmon
Preheat the broiler and combine ½ tbsp. honey with ½ tsp. soy sauce. Season 1 5-oz. salmon filet with salt and pepper and broil for five minutes. Drizzle with honey-soy sauce and broil an additional 2-5 minutes. Serve with microwaveable rice.  ( only I made it with 4 fillets and I not only quadrupled the recipe for the four fillets I also doubled that!  So for four fillets I used 4 T. honey and 4 t. soy sauce.)  My kids gobbled it up and said it was really yummy.  It was a really nice switch up.  I did increase the cook time to 15 minutes on broil and I still added the sauce after 5 minutes. 

You can find this recipe and 51 other healthy recipes at this site.