As signs of Spring arrive, less time in the kitchen and more time outdoors is desired by many of us. This chicken caesar salad is delicious, and there are a number of ways to save time. We usually bread and bake chicken breast at a convenient time during the day (or you can make it a day or two in advance) so it’s ready for quick salad arrangements. We also make it a practice to cut and bake bread-ends (seasoned with garlic powder and italian seasonings) for homemade croutons, so they are always on-hand as well. Using greens of your choice, load with chicken, croutons, fresh parmesan cheese and creamy caesar. This is one meal you can take out to the picnic table or eat in – either way it keeps you away from the oven on a beautiful day!

If you’re into local food, you can’t get much more local than your own back yard. After some hemming and hawing revolving around the fact that we have no clue what we’re doing, we decided to wing it last week and plant our first ever garden.

We chose a 12 foot by 16 foot spot in the corner of the back yard, shaded but sunny enough during the day. Here’s a rough estimate of what we planted:

• 3 pumpkin
• 12 beefstake tomato
• 6 cucumber
• 3 lettuce
• 12 bell pepper
• 1 rosemary
• 1 basil

We’ll keep updating the 2007 Vegetable Garden topic as the growing season progresses.