Recipe: Who said salad can't be good?

Before I get right down to sharing the kind of food that we eat around here, I just wanna let you know where I come from. My paternal grandmother, Carolyn, had five kids and a husband who worked in the Navy. Translation? She had to learn to do a lot with a little. Same for my Mom, who made do for us three kids during some of the leaner times.

What that translates to is that while I can occasionally au poivre a steak with the best of 'em, my strength and experience lies in comfort foods. So before you find yourself appalled by the meat-and-cheesiness of some of the dishes that I will lay before you here, understand that Grandma and Ma always bracketed anything that they served with enough leafy green stuff to make the most dedicated herbivore blanch from sheer intimidation.

So caveats having been presented, here we go with my first stay-at-home dad recipe.

Tangy Onion-Crusted Chicken over a South of France Salad

Don't intimidated by the name, it just sounds fancy. In any case this is a modification of a recipe I found God knows where, and that's pretty good for summertime. Prep time is around thirty-five minutes.

INGREDIENTS

1 doz. chicken tenderloins

1/2 cup light mayonnaise

1 packet Shake and Bake (or cheap generic equivalent; I use Albertson's brand)

1 packet french onion soup mix

1 bag o' red & green lettuce

1 small bag frozen chopped green beans

3 strips bacon (or bacon bits, if you like that kind of thing)

and if you wanna get pretty fancy...

goat cheese and pitted olives as garnish

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 350. Place the mayo into a small bowl, and combine Shake and Bake and onion soup mix into another bowl. Lightly coat each tenderloin in mayo and then coat with dry mix. Place them on a non-stick cookie sheet and place in oven, checking after twenty minutes for doneness. Juice should run clear and center of tenderloins should just be turning white when you take them out. For those of you who have concerns of pathogens, internal temp should be 165°.

While the chicken is cooking fry the bacon crisp and drain, them crumble. Cook the green beans as directed on the package and then cool.

When the chicken comes out of the oven, let it sit for ten minutes, and then slice it up real nice, using a sharp knife. oh, and try not to know all the coating off of it. On six plates, layer lettuce, green beans, bacon, then chicken. Serve with a side of fancy stuff and add a little French dressing if you feel so inclined.

Enjoy!