Chicken Salad-So Southern!

I had a few teacher friends over Monday to work on school projects. Since I was hosting this time I was in charge of the main meal.  I decided to go "southern classic" and have chicken salad sandwiches, very 1950s if you will.  I'd made chicken salad before but it is a thrown together modge-podge of various ingredients, which is very similar to my tuna salad recipe of my childhood. 

Since I was having friends over, that I don't need to impress but didn't want to look inept in front of either I went looking on Pinterest for a good recipe.  I quickly came across a pin on Pinterest of the top 10 chicken salad recipes which took me to the My Recipes website.  After scrolling through several I finally found the recipe of my heart's desire, Honey Chicken Salad.  I read the recipe carefully and found none of the ingredients to be too objectionable (I always consider nuts optional).  To cook my chicken I decided to use my crock pot after discussing with my good friend Jen (visit her cooking blog at : http://www.whatscookingatjenshouse.blogspot.com/) how to cook chicken in this method.  The easy version is to put a bunch of chicken breasts in the crock pot with some water or chicken stock and other seasonings that you like and let it go for the day.  I personally chopped up an onion and put in some black pepper and that was it.

Once the chicken was cooked it was time to shred it.  I do NOT like shredding chicken, two forks a plate and a mound of chicken doesn't bring out the best in me.  That's when I had a stroke of brilliance.  Why couldn't I put it in my Kitchen Aid mixer and let it do the work?  So I decided to give it a shot and boy was I happy!!!  I cut the chicken breasts up into ~1/4 pieces and then put the rest of the chicken salad ingredients in with the chicken.  I turned on the mixer and I've never been happier.  I used the paddle in my Kitchen Aid, the one most people use for mixing cookies, and it when to work shredding that chicken up and mixing all the ingredients at the same time.  I can't remember the number of times I've skipped recipes because they've called for shredded chicken and I refuse to spend the time doing.  Never again will I miss out because a recipe calls for shredded chicken. 

Honey Chicken Salad
4 C cooked chicken, shredded
3 celery ribs, chopped
2/3 C sweetened, dried cranberries
1/2 C mayonnaise
3/4 C Miracle Whip
2 T honey
1/4 t salt
1/2 t pepper

I put all the ingredients in my Kitchen Aid mixer and turned it on and let her rip until it was all a consistent mixture.  I'm from the Midwest and I like Miracle Whip, the actual recipe called for mayo so I used a little.  The recipe also called for pecans but, I don't like nuts, so I didn't use them either.  If you'd like to see what the actual recipe called for before I tweaked it, go here: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/honey-chicken-salad-10000001194629/

My chicken salad on croissants with a salad I made to go with it.

 I served the chicken salad on croissants and it was a big hit with my friends but even more surprisingly Dustan said I could make it for him anytime.