Speedy salad with chicken, fresh cherries and a tangy goat cheese dressing...

More cherries please! Well, that is what Jeff has been saying the past few days anyway. I think I need to put them in a container that has a lock and key to keep him from snacking on them - at least until I get all these cherry recipes completed!

Of course I'll have a couple baked treats coming up this week, but today's cherry recipe used them in this Chicken Salad with Cherries and Goat-Cheese Dressing dish we had for dinner.

Quite creamy, the dressing is a mixture of crumbled fresh goat cheese, sour cream, mild chives and a couple splashes of white-wine vinegar. You'll need to add at least a tablespoon or two of water to thin it out enough so it will coat well - if you like your dressing on the thin side, you'll probably have to add a bit more. Honestly, it was hard to keep my little spoon out of it while I was "checking" for seasonings... very tangy and luscious.

We did have one issue, but it had nothing to do with the recipe. The chicken for this dish was suppose to be seared, but we were having some issues with our burners working correctly and wasn't able to prepare it that way. I would have preferred that golden finish on the thin cuts of chicken, but it was fine in the end. We really enjoyed the textures in this salad - torn tender leaves from the Boston lettuce, beautiful juicy cherries (simply halve them so they have firm presence in the salad) and crunchy pieces of toasted chopped walnuts worked in harmony together.

Now, this snazzy salad could be served a couple of ways - you could arrange everything in sections on the plate for a more dramatic presentation and allow you and your guests to simply toss the ingredients together as you eat. This is also particularly handy if you want to save a portion for leftovers! However, you could also just toss everything together in a big ol' bowl if you want to dig in right away.

Recipes
Seared-Chicken Salad with Cherries and Goat-Cheese Dressing