Asian Salad with Chicken

Patrick took a little trip to Trader Joe's one night and came back with a few exciting items and one was goat cheese! (Patrick highly recommends the cheese section at Trader Joe's for its variety and reasonable prices.) It's one of our newly found and favorite ingredients... remember the chicken with goat cheese and sundried tomatoes? or the pasta with zucchini and goat cheese? and the asparagus-goat cheese souffles that were a bit of an experiment? also our pesto pizza? and don't forget those fried green tomatoes.

Well with this goat cheese we had to work backwards a little bit. The goat cheese came first and not the recipe! Patrick suggested a fun salad. The cranberries from our recent Crispy Potluck dish in Natalie's Crisp Cucumber Salad with Apples and Cranberries left me craving more and inspired me to go with Asian!

The chicken breast was marinated in an Asian marinade from Harris Teeter for 2 hours and then baked in a 350F oven for 25 minutes. While the chicken bakes prepare your salad. To a bed of mixed greens add mandarin oranges, yellow roma tomatoes (a delicious find from our CSA; red will be fine), dried cranberries, crumbled goat cheese, and crispy noodles. Once the chicken has baked, slice and serve with the salad. Drizzle the salad with a citrus white wine vinaigrette.
Be on the lookout for the vinaigrette--recipe coming soon!