Thanksgiving Break is a mere 12 days away...

It's been a theme on my facebook feed lately- I've seen no less than fifteen posts of members of my graduating class who have been dipping their own toes into the world of food, and all of them made the same thing: Portillo's Chopped Salad.

It happens to everyone who leaves the northwest suburbs, as far as I can tell. You miss the food, the ever-present abundance of delicious, Italian-influenced food. And while the pizza places and the beef places and the hotdog places are all equally delicious and equally available, none is missed more by the transplanted Chicago suburbanite than Portillo's. 

What I, and apparently, the rest of my graduating class, miss the most is the famous chopped salad. I introduced my friend Jen to it when we visited Illinois in September and the first thing she said when I started this blog (right after "I'm so proud of you!" Thanks Jen!) was that I had to make the delicious salad we'd had.

The recipe I found online was enough for (as I realized after) ten servings. For my purposes, I divided it in half, and it still made enough to fill my largest mixing bowl. 

Here we go!

1. Cook four cups of ditalini pasta according to package instructions. Make sure you salt the pasta water while cooking to give it some flavor. Drain and cool. Set aside. For the love of God, and listen very carefully because I will never say this ever again, do not make that much pasta. Cut this in half when making the full recipe. Four cups is way too much. 

   

   Look at all that Ditalini

2. Cook bacon in a skillet until done. Let bacon cool, then crumble. It should be about one cup. I used one of the little bags of bacon bits. I have no idea how to fry bacon, what am I, a gourmet chef? That's a whole 'nother post waiting to happen. 
3. Combine three cups chopped romaine lettuce, three cups chopped iceberg lettuce, two and a half cups of chopped red cabbage in a bowl. Walmart didn't have red cabbage, but the other two worked fine. ALSO. After reading some comments on the original post, I saw someone who recommended using a pastry blender with actual blades at the end to chop and mix the lettuce and other ingredients together. While I did pre-chop the lettuce, the pastry blender was chopping it even further in the bowl, and great for mixing it all together.
   
   

   

   With the pastry blender

4. Add one cup sliced green onions and two fresh tomatoes, seeded and diced. So, I recently discovered that Netflix has other shows that aren't Gilmore Girls available. Cooking shows, even! So in the last week and a half, I've devoured the 25 episodes of Good Eats they have available, and one of them even went over how to seed a tomato. So tonight, when it said that in the recipe and I actually knew how to do it, I was ecstatic. I learned something new, guys!

   

   The tomato on the left is "seeded"
   Basically, you juice the tomato like a lemon.
   So easy!

5. Add one cup of gorgonzola cheese, cooled ditalini, and two cups cooked and diced chicken. You all have born witness to my battle with the Chicken from Hell. It did not cooperate for this recipe. Luckily, it's not required for this salad to be delicious!
6. Mix in dressing right before eating and enjoy!

The original poster also gives a recipe for the fancy sweet Italian dressing that makes this salad so delicious. It requires the following:

• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup olive oil 

She directs that you place everything but the olive oil into a blender and then, while the blender is running, drizzle the olive oil through the blender tube until combined. I do not own a blender, so I could not do that. I did, however, combine everything in a large cereal bowl and whisked it until it thickened up a little, and it tasted fine!

End Result!

All in all, not quite as good as Portillo's, but pretty darn close. Now, I know that my favorite meal is easy to make, and my poor parents don't have to take me straight to Portillo's as soon as I cross the state line every time I come home. I mean, I'll probably still make them take me. Why not? :)

I will post again tomorrow because I was too full after eating this to move, much less cook another recipe. Luckily, I have all morning tomorrow! If you have any suggestions for recipes or techniques to try, please don't hesitate to comment below or email me at dontexpectmiraclesblog@gmail.com. Thank you for reading!

Original Recipe: http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2013/06/portillos-chopped-salad.html#LZB9fhW0SJOVW53d.99