Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Grilled Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad & An Easy Steak Marinade

This pasta salad recipe might also be a bit of a stretch for barbecue month but I'm including it anyway because a crucial ingredient came from the grill. Here's how it came to be...

Night 1, we welcomed our weekend guest, hungry Mike, with grilled chicken tenders and Caesar romaine wedges.

Night 2, I took the leftover chicken (there wasn't much left, unfortunately -- Mike) and I decided to make a pasta salad which ended up being another take on Caesar salad just so I could use the leftover dressing. Don't judge, Mike loved it.

Night 3 for Father's Day, we grilled steaks for Kelly and our adopted dad, Mike. The steak was awesome so I'll just go ahead and share the marinade for that one too...


I kind of made this one up as I went so here goes:

Grilled Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad

One bag of tri-color pasta, cooked and drained.
Place in a bowl and add about half a jar of your favorite Caesar dressing.
Add a handful of baby arugula.
Add another handful of cherry tomatoes.
Add about 1 cup of marinated artichokes.
Add about 1 cup of Parmesan cheese.
Add about 1/2 cup of red onion, chopped.
Mix it all up and determine if you need more dressing.
Before serving, add in leftover barbecue grilled chicken, cut in chunks.
Note: There is enough yummy stuff in this, that you could opt to leave out the meat if you wanted a vegetarian version -- still very delish.

Yes, I put out leftover St. Paddy's Day napkins for our weekend guest. I also made him get his own beer.
That's how we roll.
Kelly's Steaks

For three big steaks, we melted about a quarter to half stick of unsalted butter with a ton of minced garlic.
Bathe your raw meat in it, as Kelly is demonstrating in the pic below.
Sprinkle with blackened seasoning.
Grill it up nice and slow, rubbing on more garlic/butter/seasoning goop as needed.


I swear this is the only work I made him do on Father's Day.

Mike with his new shoe accessory to help him climb big mountains. He looks hungry, doesn't he?

Boom. Done!

A for-real Father's Day meal.

Who else saw the sun halo last weekend? Mike thinks it's lucky; I think he's just delirious from hunger.

So, if a rainbow is a perfect circle with no end and no beginning, where do they put the pot of gold?

3 comments:

  1. That salad looks like it's to die for! And don't tell Curtis that Kelly got steak for dad's day... all he got was boring ol' chicken. I somehow missed the sun halo, thank goodness there were at least a million pictures of it on facebook.

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  2. Mike actually pointed out the sun halo. I'm surprised he actually looked up from his plate to notice it.

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  3. wow, that meal looks amaze. Mike seems very hungry. Must be with all that activity!

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