Avocado Chicken Salad

In the last few years I have really grown to love the holiday season. Yea yea - I'm a horrible person for not always loving it, but my husband makes everything about the holidays seem magical! He acts like a little boy when the Christmas tree goes up and shakes gifts to try to guess what's in them and tells stories of all his favorite gifts over the years - it's adorable!

Christmas is a week away (gulp!) the gifts are wrapped, and all placed under the tree. We are making plans for the day of to make sure we both get to see our family and trying to decide how we are going to spend our time off! Holidazzle, Macy's 13th floor santaland, sledding, ELF at the ordway, etc. 

This past weekend my bookclub had our annual Christmas gift exchange. There were hilarious gifts all around (see below) BEST MUG EVER! Thanks again Nicole!! This was the first year where there wasn't a lot of stealing gifts out from under other people - we were all really happy with what we got!

Saturday night our neighbors had a Christmas party too - and I got to bust out my tacky Christmas sweater from college - YES! Bonus, we played a new game that Mike and I must order for everyone we know!  More on that later!

I suppose you want to know about this recipe, huh? That might be why you're here. This is a chicken salad I have made a few times over the years - it's usually served stuffed inside the avocados. The truth is - that is complicated, and not easy to serve or eat. So, I "degrade" the chicken salad and place it on top of the sliced avocados.

Ingredients:
*Recipe adapted from Emeril

1 avocado, sliced

1/2 red pepper, diced

1 shallot, minced

1 and 1/2 tablespoon chives, minced

1lb. chicken, cooked and cubed

1/2 tablespoon orange zest

1/3 cup mayo

Salt and pepper to taste

1. In order to cook the chicken for this dish I place the chicken in a medium pot, cover it with water, salt the water and add about 3 bouillon cubes. Bring to a boil at medium heat and continue to boil for about 10 minutes. This is the easiest way to cook the chicken without getting a crunchy outside on the chicken. Set aside.
2. Cut up your remaining ingredients. Then zest an orange using a micro plane. Once the chicken is cooled, cut it into cubes.
3. Mix all of the ingredients together and place on top of the sliced avocados.

BTW - Am I the only one watching Christmas movies endlessly?? I just can't.stop.watching. They are cheesy and some are hilariously bad, but they are just so addicting. Thank you Lifetime!