Quick and easy semi-homemade grape and walnut chicken salad

     Hey y'all! Well I'm here today with another recipe that I hope y'all will love and the nice thing about it...you can make it in a cinch! But...before I get straight into this recipe, let me give y'all a bit of personal background about it.  If you read my very first blog, you learned that we are a military family.  Due to that fact, we have traveled to various cities because of my husband's job as a pilot in the USAF.  We are currently living in Las Vegas, but before here we lived in Tucson. While there we discovered AJ's Fine Foods, which we quickly fell in love with.  AJ's is an upscale gourmet supermarket that provides more of a boutique like experience.  They not only provide unique food items and products, but also have an amazing bakery, deli, and hot food area that provide a unique (& delicious I must add!) eating experience.  My favorite choice whenever we ate there was definitely their pizza, but my husband's choice was their grape and walnut chicken salad.  I swear, his mouth could water just thinking about it! The only problem with their chicken salad...as with many types of chicken salad in general...is that it is high in fat....particularly saturated fat. Mayonnaise is notorious for that and, as we all know, mayonnaise is one of the key ingredients in chicken salad.  (Not to mention the fact that at AJ's, the chicken salad was quite pricey!) As soon as we moved to Las Vegas, I sought out to make it (I knew my hubby would miss it!) not only on the healthier side, but also at a better price! I got the idea from AJ's, but put this recipe together myself.
     So there...that brings us back to how I came about this recipe.  The nice thing is that you use a fully cooked rotisserie chicken (the ones that you find freshly cooked at the supermarket...near the deli/meat department).  This really helps to shorten the "cook" (there is really no "cook" time since you use a fully prepared chicken) time for your meal. You can also adjust the amount of the spices, walnuts, grapes, or mayonnaise to your own particular taste : )...so get ready to make a quick and easy delicious and "healthier" semi-homemade chicken salad!

Ingredients

• 1 whole rotisserie fully cooked ready to eat chicken(the have various spices on the chicken...I just choose the original)
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise (I use "Best Foods" reduced fat mayonnaise with Olive Oil...has 1/2 the fat and calories of regular mayonnaise...plus it's made with cage free eggs, which is ok with me bc as vegetarian who is one bc of animal rights, those are the only kind of eggs we use on our house!)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 3/4 cup halved red grapes
• seasoned salt
• pepper

    *Optional: Don't dig grapes?...Then you can also use diced up apples...& like I said earlier, you        can play with the amounts of add ins to cater to your particular taste!

Directions

1. Be sure to thoroughly wash your hands first because you will be handling (literally) the chicken...be ready to get your hands a little messy ; ).  Completely take off all of the chicken from the bone...you can use either a fork or your hands.  I recommend your hands because it is easier and quicker...the meat off of a rotisserie chicken is moist so it comes off very easily.  Place into a large bowl.  Of course, remove the skin and fat and discard. Using two forks, (I do this right in the bowl) shred up the chicken into slightly smaller pieces.
2.  Add the mayo, walnuts, grapes, and seasoned salt/pepper to taste and gently stir together.  Cover and I recommend chilling in the fridge for about 45 minutes to overnight (you can make this one the night before) since it helps the flavors to blend together nicely.
3. Serve as you see fit-on whole wheat bread, whole wheat wraps, on top of a salad...get crazy ; )!

I hope you enjoy this recipe. My husband looks forward to this meal and since I'm a vegetarian, he gets it all to himself and lasts him several days...please comment and let me know how it goes ; )!