Grilled Chicken Salad with Apples, Cranberries, Blue Cheese and Candied Cashews

This is kind of a silly post because it is far from an Earth shattering recipe- but it really is one of my favorite FAVORITE combinations when it comes to a salad. John's not really a salad-for-dinner kind of guy and even he agrees that this one is tasty.

When I need to pull dinner together fast, I like to use chicken tenderloins because they cook quickly and evenly in a skillet. I season them simply with salt and pepper and then brown in olive oil over med to med-high heat until cooked through. (3 minutes per side) I can start the salad while the chicken is cooking and then just set it aside to rest while I assemble the rest.

For two large salads, I use one bag of Riviera blend lettuces as its called in the grocery store (butter and radicchio). I add the following:

One half of a Fuji or Gala apple, thinly sliced

A handful of dried cranberries

2 T of blue cheese or gorgonzola crumbles

2 T roughly chopped candied nuts (I had some butter toffee cashews on hand from Target that were GREAT)

Honey Orange Vinaigrette:

2 T olive oil

1 T walnut oil

1.5 T balsamic vinegar

1.5 T freshly squeezed orange juice

0.5 tsp dijon mustard

small squeeze of honey

pinch of salt and some freshly cracked pepper

I cut the chicken tenders into bite size pieces and piled over the top of the salads before drizzling with the vinaigrette and that's it. I've made a variation of this vinaigrette about 500 times so I can do it very very quickly. All said and done its 25 minutes of prep max.

A few other variations that I've tried:

*bosc pear slices versus apple

*praline pecans or pistachios in the place of the cashews

*seared salmon fillet instead of chicken

*goat cheese instead of blue

*baby spinach instead of the butter and radicchio