Change in plans

You know what they say about the best laid plans. Well, I had planned to make one of my favorite dishes - white chicken chili. Things turned out a tad bit differently. You see, my son has a fine motor delay, and I am doing everything possible to make things easier for him. He does private occupational therapy, he has occupational therapy services in school, and I recently signed him up for parkour classes to help with that. I started thinking a while back about getting him a drum set. I figured that playing the drums would help his coordination, his core control, and his motor planning and fine motor development. We saw that there were great prices for drum sets over the Christmas holiday, so we put one on layaway. We didn't want to buy it for Christmas, but also didn't want to pay full price. Today was the day to go pick it up and bring it home, which meant that the boy had to CLEAN his room like he's never cleaned it before. He tried to just clean out his closet and say that he wanted to put his drum set in the closet. I figured that he was overwhelmed and didn't even know where to start. My daughter and I rolled up our sleeves and went in to help him. What a job. His room got one heck of a cleaning, and we got rid of a few bag fulls of trash and a bag full of stuff to donate to the thrift store.

We left to go pick up the drum set, and my folks offered to let the kids spend the night, which would leave David and I home. Alone. David wanted take out Chinese. I've already taken the chicken out of the freezer, so that means I will need to make the chicken chili for dinner tomorrow. Fine with me.

The recipe for today is inspired by that crunchy apple salad I had last night and again at lunch today. I am now obsessed with salads. I was looking through my cook books, and found a salad recipe that I think I might used for a few lunches next week.

White Bean Tuna Salad
Prep/total Time: 30 minutes Makes: 6 servings

Vinaigrette
1/2 C olive oil
1/4 C white wine vinegar
2-3 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp snipped fresh dill
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1 Tbsp honey
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Salad
1 can (15 ounce) white kidney or cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
2 cans (5 ounces each) albacore white tuna in water
1 C chopped roasted sweet red peppers
1/2 C chopped red onion
1/2 C chopped pitted Greek olives
1/2 C chopped oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
1/2 C minced fresh parsley
2 tsp minced fresh oregano
6 leaves red leaf lettuce

In small bowl, whisk the vinaigrette ingredients until well blended
In a large bowl, combine the beans, tuna, red peppers, onion, olives, tomatoes, parsley, and oregano. Drizzle with the vinaigrette; gently toss to coat. Serve on lettuce.

I love salads where I can make my own dressing, I like to experiment and vary the amounts or the ingredients. I think I may make this a traditional salad with mixed greens, and spinach instead of laying the ingredients on top of a bed of a few lettuce leaves.