Hi friends! I hope you are having a great week! It’s toasty warm here and cool salads are on the menu!This week, I decided to make my own mayonnaise! It’s easy and fun! Homemade mayo lasts about 3-5 days in the refrigerator. The recipe I’m using makes about 1 cup of mayo.  And the salad I put it in actually took it all. I made a chicken salad that I shared last year. But I previously just used store bought mayonnaise, which is still awesome! But I want to get better at making dressings and such so I thought I would give it a go this week.

Making your own mayonnaise is actually kind of fun. It sort of feels like a science experiment. And I love science experiments! Basically you need egg yolks, an acid and an oil. You are forcing the egg yolks to “emulsify” with the oil, which means come together. And the acid aids in the “emulsification”. That there is a million dollar word! For some reason, it really seems to help If you let the ingredients get to room temperature… they play nicer together that way!

So I went out and got a new kitchen gadget to help me with this recipe! I am still working with the basics in my kitchen, so it’s fun to add something new once in awhile! I think this is a gadget I will use a lot! You can do this with a whisk, but I wanted to add this to my collection. This is an “immersion blender” (also known as a “stick blender”). Several companies make them. I purchased mine at Bed, Bath and Beyond. It came with all of the pieces you see in the picture. Most of them come with a custom fit container to put your ingredients in. That is because sometimes you want it just slightly larger than the device that blends it.

Here you can see the blender in the cup that came with it. This one will hold up to 3 cups. If you don’t have a cup that came with your blender, you could also use a mason jar. These blenders run anywhere from $30-$60. It allows you to take your blending device easily to whatever vessel you need, freeing you up from transferring everything into a countertop blender. It is really easy to clean as well. The blending device detaches for easy cleaning.

You can use it for making sauces, whipping cream, making mayonnaise, milkshakes, smoothies, pesto,  dressings, all sorts of good things! So for today we are using it to make mayonnaise! And then I will use that in the chicken salad! Let’s begin!

Homemade Mayonnaise Ingredients:

• 1 egg + 1 additional egg yolk
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp dijon mustard
• 1/2 tsp white wine vinegar
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp salt
• couple shakes of pepper
• 1/2 cup light olive oil (you can choose any neutral flavored oil- grapeseed, canola, etc)
• 1/2 cup avocado oil (you can choose any neutral flavored oil)

Begin by adding all of the ingredients except the oil into your container. Add the oil last. Some recipes call for drizzling the oil in especially if you are hand whisking it, but it worked just fine for me to simply add it in last and then add the blender stick,

Put the blender right down in the cup so it is touching the base.

As you begin to “pulse” the blender, keep the stick right on the base. Don’t lift it. You are watching for the egg and oil to begin emulsifying. (this is so cool!) It almost looks like a lava lamp to me!

Keep the blender stick down to the bottom as you gently pulse repeatedly.

You can begin to see it emulsifying after maybe 30 seconds or so. Still, as long as you see the oil on top, keep the stick to the base.

At this point, you can begin to raise and lower gently the stick.

You want to keep going till there are no lines or streams of oil left. You are still gently pulsing.

And voila! It is a nice, creamy mayonnaise! Ready to use! This made about 1 cup. I put mine in a separate dish and in the refrigerator while I prepped my chicken salad. You could use it on sandwiches, in any salad that needs mayo, you can jazz it up with additional herbs or seasonings that you like.

So below are the crunchy ingredients I was adding in my chicken salad. I used about 3 cups of cooked chopped chicken, 1 apple chopped, 3 stalks of celery chopped, about 50 red seedless grapes sliced in half, a few sprigs of dill chopped, 1/2 cup of sliced almonds, and about 1/2 onion diced. *Note: You could use the meat of 1 rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, just remove skin and bones and cut the meat in bite sized pieces; Or, cook 2 split chicken breasts (4 pieces) – we did bone in and skin on, rub with olive oil, then salt and pepper – cooked- at 400° for about an hour. We then removed skin and bones and chopped the meat.

I added all these ingredients to a large bowl. Oh that dill smells so good! Go ahead and get the fresh, it is so worth it!

Then for the chicken salad dressing, I added to the mayonnaise we just made 1 additional Tbsp dijon mustard, 2 Tbsp lemon juice, 1 tsp salt and a dash of pepper. Stir and the put on top of the salad ingredients. **Note** You can also use a cup of mayo from the store and add in the above ingredients  if you don’t want to make homemade mayo.

Mix it up and voila! This is so good!

And you are ready to serve it up! I tried mine one way I was served it in a restaurant while on vacation last weekend. On a pineapple boat! Take a quarter of a pineapple and cut the tough core out. Then slice the pineapple leaving it in the boat but remembering to cut along the skin so you can easily eat it.

Then to get a little fancy, you can slide every other piece just a little bit in opposite directions.

I pulled a few pieces of the pineapple out of the middle and added a hefty scoop of chicken salad. This is so good! It gives it a tropical taste!

I also had mini croissants, lettuce, tomato, crackers and cheese. You could use the lettuce as a lettuce wrap if you wanted! (I should try that tonight with the leftovers!)

I am trying to cut back on breads but I keep it available for the rest of my family.

That croissant looks amazing! Be strong, Amy!

This is one of those feel good in your tummy kind of foods on a hot summer day! It’s full of flavor, it has amazing crunch factor, and it fuels you up with food that is going to serve you well! You will have some coal in the furnace to work with, and that always is a good thing!

So I am really glad I got the “immersion blender” because it is just fun to try something new! Even if you fail a few times, it is really fun to explore new territory! I have quite a few things I am interested in trying, it makes life so interesting! I’m trying to learn more about photography. You may see some of my pictures above had different lighting and color issues. So I’ve been watching videos on “color balance” (a new term for me along with “emulsifying”, hah!).

And it’s fun! To always be finding new things to learn about makes life invigorating and awesome! Don’t be intimidated by it, embrace it! Whether it is something in technology or about health or a hobby or sport, or cooking! Or blogging (boy has that been a learning journey for me!) The point is, it makes life fascinating! If you had told me 10 years ago I would be making my own mayonnaise I would have thought, “Are you kidding? No way!” I have a list a mile long of things I want to try! I hope you’ll join me!

I hope you have a fantastic week!

I’ll be back this weekend with another post!

Love Always,

Amy

Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains it’s original dimensions.                          ~Oliver Wendell Holmes