Chicken Rice Salad

This refreshing salad is perfect when cucumbers and peppers are ready in the garden or Farmer’s Market. I use home-canned chicken or turkey, but any diced cooked chicken or purchased canned chicken work, although the purchased canned chicken has much more sodium. I don’t know where I found this recipe, but I have been making it for most of our marriage.
I purchase roasted walnut oil for a delicious bread recipe I have, and am always on the lookout for other ways I can use it to boost the flavor of a recipe that has nuts in it, so I can use the oil before it gets rancid. It adds a nice touch to this salad, but olive oil or salad oil is a good substitute, and not as expensive.  Choose a gluten-free mayonnaise if necessary, like Duke's.
Chicken Rice Salad
2/3 cup Instant Brown Rice or long grain white rice
1 Cup Chicken Broth -- From chicken, add water to make amount
12 ounces Canned Chicken -- drained , or 1 pint home canned
2 tablespoons Cider Vinegar
2 tablespoons Roasted Walnut Oil or olive oil
2/3 cup Celery -- diced
1/4 cup Sweet Red Pepper
1/4 cup Cucumber -- diced
2/3 cup Green Grapes -- halved
4 tablespoons Pecans -- or walnuts (broken)
1/4 cup Mayonnaise
Cook the rice in the chicken broth. While still warm, mix in oil and vinegar and chicken. Chill 2 hours or overnight. Add remaining ingredients and mayonnaise, cover and refrigerate 2 hours or until well-chilled. Serve. Yield: "5 Cups" 5 to 6 main dish servings

Summer 2010 Cost: $3.20 or 54¢ per serving if grapes and vegetables must be purchased and home-canned chicken is used; less if you have garden cucumbers and peppers.
Per Serving: 301 Calories; 20g Fat (59.1% calories from fat); 15g Protein; 17g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 38mg Cholesterol; 482mg Sodium. Exchanges: 1 Grain(Starch); 2 Lean Meat; 0 Vegetable; 2 Fat; 0 Other Carbohydrates.