Which Came First: The Chicken, Or The Deviled Egg?

I'm very behind on posting here lately. Life has been just too eventful, too busy, in both good and bad ways. But, I promised myself that I would post my new Chicken Deviled Eggs before Easter. So I'm squeezing in 15 minutes to quickly share this recipe I concocted back in January, for my "meet the baby" day.

Scroll straight to the recipe below, if you have as little free time as me. I won't be offended.

Friends who follow Libra Loves are always asking how can I possibly manage to keep the blog up. I must be pretty organized, pretty amazing. Truthfully, I don't feel amazing at all - I've hardly been keeping up! Now, when I do post, the turnaround from creation to publish is muuuuuuch longer.

In my pre-baby freedom days, I would spend time researching, perfecting, and experimenting with foods. Recipe and procedure would be noted simultaneously. As dinner time neared, I'd get out a fancy dish, maybe a few props (although not as many as I aspire to use). Food would be plated, photographed and eaten. Kitchen would be cleaned (or my husband would help). And then my lovely functional noggin would craft some sort of back story to be written up within the next day or so, and everything would come together on the blog rather quickly.

I'm already feeling long-winded, and precious time is slipping by as I write...

Long story short, posting takes much longer on a baby's schedule. I get 15 or 30  minutes to myself here or there during the day, which usually are used up taking care of my needs - eat, sleep, shower. Or Misty's needs - eat, walk, poop. Or cleaning the house, half a task at a time. So dinner is often something quick, easy, a tried-and-true standby, and prepared and eaten whenever the baby falls asleep (and stays asleep). Don't get me wrong, my husband helps a lot, and is the only reason I ever get to post at all.

I do get bored eating the same things all the time, though, and naturally I try to keep things interesting. Once in a while, I manage to muster creativity from my foggy brain, have an extra cup of coffee and skip a nap, and throw together something new. If we are not starving, and the baby isn't crying, I manage a quick unglamorous photo to remind me what I'd done. I forget things a lot these days, so I do try to write something down within the next day or two, about how I made the dish. And then, sometime in the next few weeks, or months, I upload the photos to my computer, eventually re-touch, eventually type up the recipe, and finally insert all components into my blogger form.

Unfortunately, long-story-short is not one of my strong skills.

The short story of the chicken deviled eggs is that I only set out to make a few snacks for an afternoon of visitors. I could have made normal deviled eggs, but I wanted them to be extra filling and healthy to make the most of a limited spread. So instead of packing them with mayo and yolks, I decided to fill them with chicken salad. Low carb, high protein finger food. They were a hit!
(I know you are curious - the other major snack was pizza-bites: small balls of dough filled with tomatoes, mozzarella and basil. Thus the eggs to balance out the hot, high-carb snack.)

Chicken Deviled Eggs

In short, these are simply hard boiled eggs, filled with finely chopped chicken salad using a little bit of yolk in the mix. You could take that idea and run wild with it, but I kept the ingredients simple and minimal to save time. This takes 30-45 minutes, depending on your egg-peeling skills (mine are not so good, but the fresher the eggs the more luck you'll have).

1 dozen large eggs
1/2 lb chicken breast, cut into strips
1-1/2 C chicken stock, or 1-1/2 C water with 2 packets of chicken bouillon (2 tsp)
1/2 C celery, finely chopped
1/4 C light mayonnaise
seasoning salt (Mrs. Dash)
salt & pepper
dried parsley or dill

1. Hard cook eggs: place in pan, cover with cold water and set on high heat. Bring to a boil, cover and then remove from heat and let set 15 minutes. Drain and run under cold water to peel. Cut each egg in half and remove yolks and set aside.

2. While eggs are cooking, bring chicken stock to a boil in a shallow pan or skillet. Add chicken, cover, and poach over medium heat for 10-15 minutes. When cooked through, remove chicken and chop into very small pieces.

3. Assemble chicken salad by mixing together chicken, celery, mayo, 4-5 egg yolks and seasonings to taste. Arrange egg halves on a platter and spoon the salad into the eggs. Garnish with parsley or dill. 

Refrigerate 1 hour, or until ready to serve.