Recipe: Fried Chicken Salad, Garlic Cheese Rolls, and Pecan Layer Cake

FRIED CHICKEN SALAD
serves 6

1/2 lb. bacon, cooked crisp, drained and crumbled
1 bag of Spring Greens
1 carrot, scraped and julienned
1 cucumber, washed and chopped
1 red or green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
olive oil
12 frozen chicken tenders
Montreal Chicken Seasoning
1 tomato diced
2 hard boiled eggs, chopped

Cook bacon, drain and set aside. Put the salad greens into a large salad bowl, add carrots, cukes and bell pepper. Set in fridge while you saute the chicken.

Drizzle olive oil in a pan and saute frozen chicken tenders until brown and tender. This should only take a few minutes per batch. Sprinkle with chicken seasoning.

Remove the salad from fridge, add tomatoes, bacon and eggs and top with the chicken strips.

Serve with croutons and your favorite salad dressing. We love Honey Mustard with it.

---

GARLIC CHEESE ROLLS

These rolls are fast and so easy to prepare using refrigerated dough breadsticks from your favorite grocer.

1 pkg. refrigerated dough breadsticks (the kind that has 8 in the tube)
2 Tbsp. olive oil
garlic salt
paprika
parsley
grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup grated mozzarella cheese
1 egg, beaten

Unroll the dough and spread out to make a large rectangle. You will be rolling each one individually later so don't meld together. With a brush lightly brush on the oil and sprinkle with all the seasonings. Sprinkle on the cheeses and one at a time, roll a stick of dough up, pinwheel style and place each into a greased muffin tin cup. Brush the tops with the beaten egg and sprinkle with some more parmesan.

Bake at 350 degrees F for about 15-18 minutes or til golden brown.

---

LEMON CURD BLUEBERRY PECAN LAYER CAKE WITH CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

FOR THE CAKE:
2 sticks (1 cup) butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, separated
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. vanilla extract
FOR THE FROSTING:
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter, softened
1 (16 oz.) box confectioner's sugar
1 tsp. almond extract
Lemon Curd (for filling)
Blueberries (for filling)
about 1 cup finely chopped pecans (for garnish)

TO MAKE THE CAKE:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Cut three 9-inch rounds of parchment paper for the pans. Grease the bottom of the pans, place parchment paper on bottom and grease top of parchment round. Set them aside.

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the baking powder, salt and 1 cup of flour. Blend in 1/3 cup of milk. Alternate adding the remaining flour and milk ending with flour. Add the 2 extracts and blend well. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold into batter until no white streaks show.

Divide the batter between the three pans and bake 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of cake comes out clean. Transfer the pans to wire racks and let cool for 10 minutes before inverting onto wire racks to cool completely.

FOR THE FROSTING:
Cream together the cream cheese and butter. Add confectioner's sugar and almond extract. Beat until smooth and shiny.

Place the first cake layer onto a serving platter, take half of the Lemon Curd and spread onto cake layer, take a spatula -full of frosting and carefully spread on top of curd, layer entire top with blueberries. Stack the next layer and repeat procedure. Stack the last layer and place on top, press down gently and use remaining frosting to frost top and sides of cake. Sprinkle chopped pecans over top and sides.