A Nerdy Explanation for My Absence and a Cheap, Easy Recipe

I'm just a titch forgetful. I meant to give you a heads up, but I went on a mini-vacation last week. Hence the no posts. Well...technically I went on a business trip. A business trip which fully exposed my dental nerdiness.

Collin & I took off on Thursday for a conference in Coeur d' Alene. It was a two day course on medical emergencies in the dental office and dental anesthetic technique. That's not the good part. The good part? The speaker was Dr. Stanley Malamed. And now you're scratching your heads thinking...who?? Well, if you went to dental school you probably know the name. If not, you will in a minute.

Dr. Malamed is pretty much the dental anesthetic guru. He wrote the book on it...no seriously, he wrote the book on it. I own it. It's the book I learned off of and that's probably the case for about...oh...95% of dentists in the United States. The man is awesome.

I had a great time in the class. Collin and I chatted with Dr. Malamed quite a bit - Dr. Malamed was really excited to have a paramedic in his class and kept checking his facts with Collin. How cool is that? We both decided that we'd totally hang out with him.

So...of course I had to get a picture with him. (Side note: when I texted Erin about the class she asked if I had him sign my boob. No Erin, I did not.) I haven't yet uploaded the pictures from the camera, so you get the crummy phone version of the photo. Still awesome.

Not a bad weekend. Collin & I got to spend some much needed time together, had some ridiculously good sushi and I got 14 CE credits. Whee!

Now...the other half of the promise inferred by the title...

Ranch Chicken Salad

I'll be honest...this one isn't a five star meal. That should be fairly obvious. However, this is great for one of those days where you don't want to do much cooking but you don't want something out of a box. It does not do well as leftovers...I will warn you. (Unless you keep the components separate.)

This is one of those college kid meals. I had it quite a few times in dental school.

The ingredients are pretty simple :

2 cans precooked chunk chicken (you can use 4-5 boneless skinless chicken breasts instead...I'm too lazy)

1 package ready-to-serve salad

1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

3/4 cup ranch dressing

3/4 cup salsa

1 cup corn chips, crunched

Pretty easy right? And cheap. That probably should've been obvious both from the title and from the fact that I pegged it as a "college kid" meal.

Are you ready for the oh-so-difficult instructions?

Mix salad with chicken and cheese. Combine dressing and salsa. Drizzle dressing over salad. Top with chips.

It's pretty much rocket science.

The good news is that you hit all the main food groups and it takes you about 5 minutes to prep. In fact, this is an easy meal to make for your newly training chefs. Darian can do this one by himself.

Enjoy!