Monday, May 23, 2011

Pita Chips, Shirazi Salad, and Chicken "Tenders"

Today, I made dinner.
For most people, this is a normal event, but for me, baby of the family (and the only one still living at home), it's rather unusual.
It began, as most meals I make do, with the scouring of the cupboards, looking for inspiration. I took mental notes of things that looked good (squash, tomatoes) and noted that there was a plethora of pita bread. Thus began dish #1 of my meal: Pita crisps.

PITA CRISPS*
Ingredients
Pita bread (cut into 8 slivers)
Olive oil cooking spray

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cut pita bread and separate the two layers. Put in a single layer on a large, greased baking pan.
3. Spray a final layer of olive oil on top and put in the oven. Cook for 7-10 minutes.

Cook Time: 15 minutes (5 minutes prep, 10 minutes cooking)

Notes: I used 2 whole pitas for the three at home. Also, the pita crisps were pretty crispy after ten minutes, so next time I'm trying seven.

*combined from Mom's recipe for her tortilla strips and something I had at Girl's Scout's once.

Continuing in my journey, I had thought a tomato sauce would be good with some of the squash and other vegetables I had found in the fridge. But, I thought to myself, tomato sauce is Italian and pita chips are Middle Eastern. So, on I went to the second step of any good meal--internet research! At first, it didn't seem like there was any combination of tomatoes and squash that was Middle Eastern at all, but luckily, Google's auto-complete led me to the next dish, Shirazi Salad. (http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2007/08/recipe-favorites-middle-eastern-tomato.html)

SHIRAZI SALAD (as prepared by Rosie 5/23)
1 cup finely diced cucumber
1 cup finely diced Roma tomatoes
1 cup finely diced onion (recommended: sweet Vidalia onion)
1 1/2 tsp dried parsley
1 1/2 tsp dried mint
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 Tbsp reaLemon juice
salt, pepper to taste

Directions
1. Chop cucumber in pieces less than 1/2 inch and put in colander. Add a generous amount of salt and let sit while you chop other ingredients.
2. Cucumbers and tomatoes should be cut in rather small pieces, onions should be cut even smaller, and parsley and mint should be chopped very finely.
3. When all ingredients are chopped, combine in a large bowl with olive oil, lemon juice, and pepper.

Cooking Time: 30 minutes, roughly (mostly because I'm a slow chopper)

Notes: I didn't have any fresh parsley or mint on hand, but next time I would try it, and maybe use less than the cup of each that the recipe recommends. I used two Roma tomatoes (they're the long ones) for this dish

The final step of the quest was to find a suitable protein dish that went with this meal. I checked out the recipes recommended by the author of the delicious tomato salad, but the chicken I found needed 4-6 hours to marinate! Way too long for me to make a dinner out of that for tonight. But the lemon marinade written in the recipe reminded me of this chicken I had learned to make in Young Women's. A quick gmail search, and I had located the recipe.

CHICKEN "TENDERS"*
Ingredients
Chicken tenders
1/2 cup Flour (add more to bowl as needed)
~1 Tbsp of Butter
1-2 tsp lemon juice
1-2 tsp of sparkling grape juice (optional)
Capers (optional)

Directions
1. Trim chicken. Preheat a pan on the stove on medium heat with butter in pan.
2. Pour flour into a shallow bowl and coat chicken with flour.
3. Place chicken in pan and cook until brown. Flip. After chicken is mostly done, you can add the lemon juice and the grape juice.
4. Serve with capers as a garnish or in a separate dish.

Cooking Time: 35 minutes (prep: 20 minutes, cooking: 15 minutes)

Notes: I didn't have sparkling grape juice available, but it turned out alright. This is one of my favorite chicken dishes. Hope you all enjoy!
*I put tenders in quotes because this entire recipe was prepared today using chicken breast. Traditionally it is made with chicken tenders.

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