Summer Grilling: Grilled Balsamic Chicken & Chopped Vegetable Salad

Today’s post comes courtesy of my handy recipe binder. I’ve been clipping and keeping recipes for 10+ years, and sure, it’d be easier to just bookmark them and go back to them online when I need them. But there’s something reassuring about just going to binder and knowing they’ll be there. I mean, what if you bookmarked some recipe that was on someone’s Angelfire Web site in 1997? It’s probably toast, long ago abandoned by someone who probably moved on to Blogger or hosting their own site. (Holy cow, I just googled it, Angelfire still exists and is part of Lycos. Lycos still exists? Really?)

Anyway, I clipped the recipes for the balsamic BBQ sauce and the chopped vegetable salad. They’re great for summer grilling, but luckily both are still available online.

Alexis’ Chopped Vegetable Salad comes from Martha Stewart circa 2000, and the Balsamic BBQ sauce comes from Giada de Laurentiis (not sure what year — Everyday Italian era).

Just a few tips. On Alexis’ Chopped Vegetable Salad, I don’t bother blanching the corn. It’s sweet enough to eat raw, and let’s face it, on super hot days, who wants to boil a pot of water? That said, you will need to blanch the green beans and wax beans. The beauty of it is, this is either a “clean-out-the-veg-drawer” salad or a “go-buy-everything-because-you-didn’t-have-it” salad, so feel free to improvise.

As for Giada’s balsamic BBQ sauce – the recipe makes A LOT of sauce (and with 1 c. of balsamic vinegar, it should). It’s enough for 6-8 boneless skinless chicken breasts with plenty left over for dipping. Just salt and pepper the chicken breasts and baste while grilling as the recipe directs. You can also bake the chicken if you don’t have a grill, and it’s just fine, but there’s something about the high heat of the grill that concentrates the flavors in a way the oven just can’t quite match.

Enjoy! (And keep on clippin’!)