Slowing Down & Chicken Salad

This past weekend I was able to take some time to slow down. Some of the leaders for our high school ministry group spent Friday and Saturday together at a lake house in Michigan that was generously open to us from a family in our church. It was the perfect 24 hour get away.

Bonfires, worship, and good food. We got to spend time learning more about each other, recharging before starting a new ministry year, and taking our own time to spend with God.

With training camp still going on, and J working long days, I’m still working on keeping myself busy. Between getting home from work and J getting home, I have a wonderful to do list in my head. I’m lucky if half of it gets done. As long as I don’t spend the whole evening sitting on the couch, I guess I’ve been a little successful.

Being so busy can be exhausting. And with the school year starting up again, I feel like I’m just going to get busier. HSM Sunday, women’s small group Wednesday, football chapel Friday, game day Saturday, and work 8-5 every weekday. And today, I finally decided to get a gym membership. When am I going to have time to just relax?

This weekend was a great reminder to me of how to take advantage of free time and to not try to fill it with being busy. It’s just as important to take some time to dig into the Word, take a walk, even take a nap.

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The other morning I was rushing to get ready to leave for work, and still needed to pack my lunch. I had been craving chicken salad for awhile so I figured I could whip some up real quick, at least enough for lunch that day. I looked in the fridge and realized I had the perfect ingredients to make something worth eating. I didn’t want to use a ton of mayo in the mixture, and that’s when I saw that there was some ricotta cheese left over from some lasagna that I made.

 

 

We have a lot of blueberries in our fridge. J eats them by the pint, so when they’re on sale at Aldi, I buy ten, and freeze some. I wanted some fruit in this chicken salad, but I already had grapes in my lunch, and a thought it needed a pop of color. Blueberries seemed like the perfect idea! I then found some pecans in the freezer and quickly chopped them up to add to it. When I got to eat it later, I was surprised by just how great it tasted!

Ricotta & Blueberry Chicken Salad

• 1½ cup chicken (cooked, cubed)
• ¼ cup diced yellow onion
• 1 cup diced celery (2 stalks)
• ½ cup chopped pecans
• 1 cup blueberries
• ½ cup ricotta cheese
• Little less than ¼ cup of mayonnaise

Chop and mix all ingredients together. Serve on a salad or bread. Or eat out of the bowl!

Enjoy!

Perfect for packing lunches!