Chicken Breasts with Tomatoes and Olives

 

Ingredients

THE 5 INGREDIENTS:

4 (6-ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves 

1 cup multicolored cherry or grape tomatoes, halved

3 tablespoons oil and vinegar dressing, divided

20 olives, halved

1/2 cup (2 ounces) crumbled feta cheese

Preparation

Prepare grill to medium-high heat. Sprinkle chicken evenly with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper. Place chicken on grill rack coated with cooking spray, and grill for 6 minutes on each side or until chicken is done. Keep warm. Combine tomatoes, 1 1/2 tablespoons dressing, and olives in a medium skillet over medium heat, and cook for 2 minutes or until tomatoes soften slightly and mixture is thoroughly heated, stirring occasionally. Brush chicken with remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons dressing. Cut each chicken breast half into 3/4-inch slices. Top each chicken breast half with 1/4 cup tomato mixture. Sprinkle each serving with 2 tablespoons cheese and torn basil leaves, if desired.

 

Chicken and Cashews

                                          Chicken and Cashews

Ingredients

3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce, divided

2 tablespoons dry sherry

4 teaspoons cornstarch, divided

1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces 

1/2 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth 

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

1 tablespoon honey

2 teaspoons sesame oil, divided

3/4 cup chopped onion 

1/2 cup chopped celery

1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper 

1 tablespoon grated peeled fresh ginger

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 cup chopped green onions (about 3 green onions) 

1/4 cup chopped unsalted dry-roasted cashews 

Preparation

1. Combine 1 tablespoon soy sauce, sherry, 2 teaspoons cornstarch, and chicken in a large bowl; toss well to coat. Combine remaining 2 tablespoons soy sauce, remaining 2 teaspoons cornstarch, broth, oyster sauce, and honey in a small bowl.

2. Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken mixture to pan; sauté 3 minutes. Remove from pan. Heat remaining 1 teaspoon oil in pan. Add onion, celery, and bell pepper to pan; sauté 2 minutes. Add ginger and garlic; sauté 1 minute. Return chicken mixture to pan; sauté 1 minute. Stir in broth mixture. Bring to a boil; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Sprinkle with green onions and cashews.

Rice pilaf: Heat 1 tablespoon canola oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add 1/2 cup chopped onion and 2 teaspoons grated peeled fresh ginger to pan; sauté 2 minutes. Stir in 1 cup water, 1/2 cup long-grain rice, and 1/4 teaspoon salt; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 12 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat; stir in 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro.

                  SUMMER STRAWBERRY SALAD

I don’t know about you, but these afternoon heat indexes are making my house hot! The last thing I want to do is turn another burner on or turn on my oven.  We have chose to grill a lot of our meals outside lately to keep from heating up the house and then have to run the A/C on high to cool it back down again.

We have also started adding in lighter fairs into our meals like fresh salads, cold pasta salads, grilled vegetables, and such.  Have you looked at the salad dressing isle lately and the many varieties they have to offer?  Now, these are just VINAIGRETTES!!! Who knew? So you can pick which favor you want to add to your salad, it took me 10 minutes to find the one I wanted! We even like to use these for marinades on our chicken.  Sometimes you get tired the choices at the supermarket and decide to create your own, nothing wrong with that!

 

There are so many to choose from so you can pick which one you want to use for your Summer Strawberry Salad but I like the Strawberry Vinaigrette for my salad.

What you will need:

1 bag of Baby Spinach Salad

Strawberries

Blueberries

Ultra-Dried Cranberries

Sliced Almonds (optional)

Salad Dressing of your Choice

Wash and dry your salad in a large salad bowl.  Wash your strawberries and blueberries. Cut your strawberries, add those and the blueberries to the salad.  Sprinkle as many cranberries as you like to your salad.  This will cut the sweet tanginess of the salad so I like a lot of them.  Toss your salad and top with sliced almonds.

Doesn’t this look yummy?  Here we added our salad to our grilled chicken and corn.  The chicken was marinated and then wrapped in bacon before being placed on the grill.  Let met tell you, it fell apart in your mouth before you could chew it.  BUT I will save them recipe for another day!

Peanut butter cup cookies

Ingredients :

• 1 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup creamy peaunt butter
• 1/1 cup granulated sugar 
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 48 miniature Reese's peaunt butter cups, unwrapped

Directions :

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.

Beat together the butter, peaunt butter and both sugars on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3
minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the egg and vanilla and mix for another minute or
so to combie. Reduce the mixer speed to low, add the dry ingredients, and mix until just combied. Give
the dough a final mix whith a rubber spatula to ensure all the flour is incorporated.

Shape the dough onto 1-inch balls (about 2 teaspoons worth of dought) and place in the cups of a miniature
muffin pan (keep the dough in balls - do not into the pan).

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until light golden brown and slightly puffy. Remove from the oven and
immediatley press a miniature peanut butter cupp in the middle of each cookie, pressing down so that the
top of the peanut butter cup is even with the top of the cookie. Cool for at least 10 minutes before
removing from the pans, and let cool completely. Store in airtight contanier at room temperature.

Souvlaki

Souvlaki is one the most popular street
food in Greece, stuffed whith cooked and
seasoned meat (pork or chiken), garnished
whith Tzatziki sauce, wrapped in a delicus
warm Pita bread and.... it tastes divine! Have
you ever tried to prepare at home?
Choosing the good quality pork, using a lov
fat yorgut for the Tzatiki and baking the Pita
with some olive oil instead of frying it, it's
healther and absolytley delicous.

Ingedients :

• 4 store-boguht or homemade Pita bread
• 1 red onion, sliced
• 1 tomato, sliced
• fried patatos........ for the pork gyros
• 1 pork tenderloin, cut into strips
• 1/2 red onion,sliced
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 4 tablespoons olive oil 
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegag
• 1 teaspoon dried oregamo
• 1 teaspoon dried rosmary
• 1/2 tablespoon of honey

For the pork gyros: mix very well into a large bowl the pork meat, garlic, red onion , olive oil red vine
vinegar, rosemary, oregano and honey. warp the bowl in cling filmand put into te fridge for at lasr 2
hours.
Put a large non-sticking pan over high heat, add the tenderloin along whith the marinade and saute for 2-3
minutes stirring well until the meat is crispy and tender inside.
Prepare the Tzatziki sauce, recipe here.
Preheat the oven to 250C.
Brush the Pita breads with olive oil, season with and freshly ground blak pepper anr bake for 1
minute.
To serve the souvlaki, spead some Tzatziki sauce on the Pita preads, add pork gyros, red onion slices,
tomato slices and some fried potatos. Warp with foil and serve with some mustard and Mayonnaise
sauce

Bakllava

Ingerdients:

• 5 eggs - 1 full egg and 4 egg yolks
• 1 cup of cooling oil
• 1 cup of milk 
• 1 midrange spoon of sugar
• 500 gr of flour 
• 400 gr of crushed wlanuts
• 200-300 gr butter 
• The Syrup
• 2 jars whith sugar about 1.2kg
• 2 jars with water

Directions:
Baklla is one of the tredicional pastreis of the Albanian cuisine. Althought of Turkish origin, bakllava's
preparition and recipe is a small recipe heritage that is passed on generation in Albania as well.
There are a few diferent ways of marking bakllava, (vayring from the way it's rolled) or what kind of nuts and
fruits it contains.
To prepare it, initially you have to prepare the dough.The dough consisits of eggs, cooking oil, milk and flour.
Mix them all together and leave the dough covered with a kitchen napkin for a couple of hours.
After e few hours take the dough and civide info 50 very small pieces (almost as big as agg yolk).
Take 10 dought pieces and flatten them one by one with strach. After than the 10 pieces and put them
on top of each other after putting a bit of starch between each other. After that flatten the dought to fit the
braking pan. Put the crushe walnuts on top of the dough and roll the whole pattylike a strudle. Take the
rolled patty and put it on the pan. Repeat the same with the other dought pieces that are left.
Finaly put the  bakllava in the warm stove and bake it for 2-3 hours at 150 C

The Syrup
Boil the water about 30 minutes mixet the sugar until the starts gatting dense. The bakllava
should be cooled down before you put on the hot syrup on top.
Finaly leave the bakllava to cool down before serving.

Chilled yogrut and cucumber soup (tarator)

                                       Chilled yogrut and cucumber soup (tarator)
Tarator, a chilled yourgut and cucumber
soup, superb for hot summer days, can also
be used as a dip for seafood or a pour-over
sauce for cauliflower, etc. (serves 5)

Ingredients:

• 2 Cocumbers, peeled and grated
• 1 Garlic Clove, peeled and crushed
• 2 LG cartons of Greek style yorgut
• 1/2  cup water (optimal)
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 2 tbsp dill, chopped
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Choped walunts (optimal)

Directions
Mix the crushed gralic and salt together and
add to the grated cucumber.put the yongut in large bowl and mix in the cucumber mixture. Depending
upon the considery and flavour of the youngut you may wish to optimaly thin-down the yogurt whith the
water. Taste and adjust seasoning. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle whith chopped dill and crushed walnuts if
using. Refrigerate fol a few hours before serving. Yummy!!!.