Grilled Caramel Balsamic Chicken Salad

It was a Wednesday night, and my husband was on Winter break from school for only a few more days before he had to return to the daily grind. One of his old childhood friends Zandy aka Zanballer invited him up to his place in Santa Barbara for epic evening of video games and to consume large amounts of alcohol. How could he pass up this fabulous opportunity? Hahaha! I would be utterly shocked if he did! Still, very considerate and a respectful husband, instead of telling me he was going up there, he kindly asked me if it was ok he go visit Zandy for the evening. Of course I was going to say yes; our daughter was down for the night and some of my favorite Wednesday night shows were about to start on TV. I had only about 30 minutes before my first show was about to start and although I take full advantage of our DVR to avoid commercials, I was going to have two things recording at once and I was anxious to just hurry up and make something quick to eat so I could sit down and relax the rest of my evening.

I was definitely in a “salad mood” and knew I wanted to get chicken involved somehow. I turned on the oven to 450 degrees, grabbed my cast iron skillet and turned on a burner just below medium/high heat. While my skillet was heating up, I grabbed a chicken breast out of the fridge and quickly seasoned it with salt, pepper and a dash of nutmeg. As I was putting the nutmeg back in my pantry, I saw the balsamic vinegar towards the far back left side and saw a brand new unopened container of Hershey’s Caramel sauce right next to it. Double yes, I’ll use both! I drizzled balsamic vinegar on both sides of the chicken then drizzled the caramel sauce on top giving it a nice little coat. The skillet wasn’t fully warmed up yet so I moved on to the next thing because the clock was ticking. I had a package of baby heirloom tomatoes in the fridge so I grabbed a handful of those, rinsed them off and sliced them in half. Oh, I have celery in my bottom refrigerator door too? Awesome, let’s add one stalk of that as well. This was the conversation I was having with myself in my head. I saw on the top shelf that I had a little bit of red onion leftover from last night’s dinner. I grabbed that and gave that a few chops and tossed it in the bowl with everything else. Beep, beep, beep! The oven was ready and my skilled was ready to rock n roll! I threw on my chicken and placed the bowl of chopped up veggies back into the fridge. I grilled the chicken on one side for a few minutes (enough to leave the grill marks on it) then I flipped it and popped it in the oven to bake for the rest of the time.

In all honestly, this was practically perfect timing because my show was just about to start. I sat down and watched for about 10-15 minutes then I paused it to check on my chicken. It was ready! I pulled my chicken out and placed it on a cutting board to let it cool down. While it was cooling, I pulled out my bowl of chopped veggies and grabbed my favorite salad mix called Organics Herb salad. I rinsed off the salad and tossed it in the bowl with the rest of the cut up veggies. I cut the chicken into small chunks and threw that in the bowl, added feta cheese and pumpkin seeds I had randomly bought on a whim one day. Drizzled some light balsamic vinaigrette on top with a little bit of ground pepper then tossed everything together. Phew! Finally I was done!

I can’t deny I was actually impressed with how fast I got everything done because typically I tend to be a bit of a slow-poke in the kitchen because I consider cooking to be very therapeutic. Am I crazy???