A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Meditteranean Chicken Spaghetti Salad

Mediterranean Chicken Spaghetti Salad is a cold pasta salad that makes for a wonderfully refreshing summer meal.  Pasta, lovely fresh veggies, and rotisserie chicken also make for a quick prep that can be made ahead and is even better the second day after the dressing has had a chance to combine flavors with all those veggies and pasta.  It's a win win, can't lose dish that works well into busy schedules and hot summer days.  

I first heard of spaghetti salad when a gal, Jan, brought it to a work potluck.  Spaghetti as the pasta in a pasta salad? Why,  I'd never heard of such a thing! (laughing at myself)  I think she called it California Spaghetti Salad.  I can't remember all the ingredients except for tomatoes and black olives, but I love the idea in all its easily customizable forms:  spaghetti as a cold pasta base with any kind of chicken whether it's breasts or dark meat, grilled or rotisserie, or even vegetarian.  Not to mention the vegetables can be anything I have in the crisper or pantry:  tomatoes, black olives, snow peas, sugar snap peas, frozen peas, cucumber, zucchini,  red peppers, green peppers, any or all of the above or any other veggies that seems appropriate and willing to be chopped at the time.

I've made this on many occasions, mostly for myself and Gene for no occasion at all but in the photos I served it for lunch for a couple of friends, Maggie and Melissa, and actually took the time to make lunch feel like a celebration by baking homemade bread and getting out the pretty "Sunday dinner" serving bowls.

Low carb diets be damned, I served the salad with tall glasses of tart lemonade and these, my favorite of favorite, go-to daily bread recipe from the awesome Faith Brockoff who taught a fun-filled morning bread class to me, Auntie Susan, and cousin/bestie Ann, for Auntie's birthday several years ago. I've never looked back.  I love that the milk and egg create a tender crumb that lends itself so well to any form or shape I want it take, from rolls, to loaves, to boules, to...  Faith's Farmhouse Bread

Oven Baked Tandoori Chicken

I don't pretend for even a minute to be any kind of authority on Indian cuisine.  My experience is limited to a few heavenly experiences at the local Indian buffet at Taj Mahal, a few jarred sauces I poured over chicken, and a family favorite recipe of Honey-Mustard Curry Roasted Drumsticks that Gene clipped out of the newspaper a long while ago.  But my curry roasted chicken and recent Indian buffet experiences were enough to get me interested enough to start reading and pinning recipes on Pinterest.

Tandoori Chicken by A Fridge Full of Food blog