Santa Rosa Valley Salad

My good friend Brandy W. gave me this recipe a few years back. This is a cold salad. I brought it to baby shower and it was gobbled up so fast! Jared & I love this, but I will warn you, you're kids will turn up their noses and tell you it is disgusting. You might want to prepare some PB&J for them and enjoy their portions.

The recipe says it serves 13, but I'd say more like 10 if you are serving snack sized portions, and serves 5-6 if you are serving dinner sized servings. We had ours with almond crackers. Yum!

Ingredients:

1 box Uncle Ben's Seasoned Long Grain & Wild rice (not instant)

Juice of 1 lemon

1 red pepper diced

3 oz. snow peas ends removed

4 green onions chopped

3 chicken breasts cooked & diced

1 cup pecans toasted and chopped

2 avocados diced

red leaf lettuce for garnish -optional

Dressing:

2 cloves garlic minced

1 tbs dijon style mustard

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp sugar

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/3 cup seasoned rice vinegar

1/3 cup vegetable oil

Directions:

Cook the rice according to the package, but reduce water by 1/3 cup to prevent overcooking and the rice getting too mushy. Salad looks best with a firmer grain. Cool rice. Combine remaining ingredients except for the pecans and avocados. Prepare dressing by combining all ingredients in a blender and blending until emulsified. Pour over rice mixture and mix well. Refrigerate 2 to 4 hours or overnight. Just before serving add pecans and avocado. Serve on bed of red leaf lettuce.

What I did different:

- I'm not a fan of snow peas, so we didn't have them.

- I had already chopped my red & green pepper earlier in the week and they got all mixed together, so my recipe had both.

- I only used 2 large chicken breasts because that's what I had defrosted. It was plenty for us, but you might like more chicken.

- I also completely missed the part about adding 1/3 cup less water, so I didn't do it and it was fine. Probably not as firm, but still tasty.