Spicy Chicken Shawarma

 A shawarma and a Morgan!

Anyone from the Mankato area will tell you that Massad's is the place to eat if you are at the mall. The chicken shawarma's there are to die for, even if they leave you with unfortunate breath for a day or two. Since I no longer live in the area, I have been forced to find my own version, and this one comes pretty close. I don't think Massad's could ever be replicated unless you got the actual recipe, but this one comes close enough to tide me over until the next guarantee of a Massad's shawarma, Black Friday. An bonus, it's pretty healthy!

Spicy Chicken Shawarma
Source: Adapted slightly from Cooking Light

Ingredients:

• 2  Tbls  finely chopped fresh parsley
• 1/2  tsp  salt
• 1/2  tsp  crushed red pepper
• 1/4  tsp  ground ginger
• 1/4  tsp  ground cumin
• 1/8  tsp  ground coriander
• 1/4 cup plus 2 Tbls  plain low-fat Greek-style yogurt, divided
• 2  Tbls  fresh lemon juice, divided
• 3  garlic cloves, minced and divided
• 1  pound  skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, thinly sliced
• 2  Tbls  extra-virgin olive oil
• 1  Tbls  tahini
• 4  (6-inch) pitas, halved

Optional toppings:

• 1/2  cup  chopped cucumber
• 1/2  cup  chopped plum tomato
• 1/4  cup  chopped red onion
• lettuce

1. Combine first 6 ingredients in a large bowl; stir in 2 tablespoons yogurt, 1 tablespoon juice, and 2 garlic cloves. Add chicken; toss to coat. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken mixture to pan; sauté 6 minutes or until browned and done, stirring frequently.

2. While chicken cooks, combine remaining 1/4 cup yogurt, remaining 1 tablespoon lemon juice, remaining 1 garlic clove, and tahini, stirring well. Spread 1 1/2 teaspoons yogurt mixture inside each pita half; divide chicken evenly among pita halves. Fill each pita half with desired toppings.

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have finally returned to the land of the blog! The past two months have been a blur, between writing my clinical competency exam, writing parent assessments, spending time with Abby and Mason, keeping the house clean, weddings, friends, family etc. I have not had any spare time to blog my adventures. And honestly, the adventures were few and far between:/ But I'm back, with a backlog of things to post, so hopefully I can keep up!

Ah the chocolate chip cookie. So simple, so delicious, and yet they so easily snuck under my radar. I'm sure everyone has their go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe, I mean a cookie is a cookie right? Wrong. Sorry mom, but these cookies beat out your recipe we have been making for years. 

The technique to these cookies is a bit untraditional based on other cookies I have seen/made. From what I gather from America's Test Kitchen, when the melted butter mixes with the dough, the flour proteins grab onto freed water molecules from the butter, forming elastic sheets of gluten. In other words, gluten=chewy cookie. Science aside, these are just damn good cookies. Thick, chewy and chocolate-y. Even if you have a go-to recipe already, I strongly urge you to give these a try and compare.

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Source: Adapted slightly from American Classics, from the editors of Cooks Illustrated

Ingredients:
2 cups plus 2 Tbls all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
12 Tbls unsalted butter, melted and cooled until just warm
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg plus one egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1. Adjust oven racks to upper and lower middle racks; heat oven to 325 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. Whisk together dry ingredients.

3. By hand or with stand/electric mixer, beat melted butter and sugars until thoroughly combined. Add the egg, egg yolk and vanilla; mix until incorporated and smooth. Slowly add in dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Be careful to not overbeat. Add chocolate chips and stir to combine.

4. Roll a scant 1/2 cup dough into a ball. Holding dough ball in fingertips of both hands, pull the dough apart into two equal halves. Rotate the halves 90 degrees and place on baking sheet with jagged surfaces up, leaving enough room between each ball.

5. Bake for 11-14, rotating baking sheets halfway through baking, until outer edges start to harden but centers are still soft and puffy. Cool cookies on baking sheet until they can be moved to cooling rack without breaking.

Busy Busy

Things have been pretty busy around here lately! I have a big paper due in a few weeks, so I have not had time for any blog updates. I'm still cooking and baking, so stay tuned for new posts in a couple weeks:)

Laughing Cow Chicken

If you google "laughing cow chicken" I am sure that you will find a ton of variations of this recipe. There really is no real way you can mess up this dish, and the beauty of it is that you can take the concept and adapt it any way you want. I've seen versions using each cheese flavor (garlic and herb, french onion, swiss), breaded and non-breaded, flattened and rolled, etc.

In the past I would make this by pounding the chicken, spreading on a wedge of cheese, and then rolling it up and securing with toothpicks. However, I feel too much of the cheese oozes out while baking, so this is my new variation and I love it! Again, feel free to switch up the cheese and seasonings. When using garlic and herb cheese I like to use italian seasoning in the panko.

Laughing Cow Chicken
Source: Kitchen Escapes original

Ingredients:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
4 wedges laughing cow cheese, french onion
1 cup panko bread crumbs
1 egg white
1/4 tsp. onion powder
salt and pepper
1-2 Tbls. olive oil

Preparation:

Cut 2 inch horizontal slits in each chicken breast, making sure to not cut all the way through, just cut enough to make a nice pocket. Spread one cheese wedge in the pocket of each chicken breast and season each with salt and pepper.

Combine panko, onion powder and salt and pepper to taste in shallow bowl. Add egg white to second shallow bowl. Dip chicken breasts in egg and then dredge in breadcrumbs, coating well.

Heat oil in large oven-proof skillet over medium-high heat; preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add chicken breasts to hot skillet, cook 4-6 minutes until browned. Flip chicken, cook another 4-6 minutes until brown and crispy. Transfer skillet to oven, bake 6-10 minutes until chicken is cooked through.

Enjoy!

Spicy Asian Lettuce Wraps

Over the past few years I have made numerous recipes from Cooking Light, and I have come to find that some of the magazine's recipes are disappointingly bad. I had high hopes for a ricotta pasta awhile ago, that ended up a congealed mass of cheese and dried herbs....quite unedible.

These wraps.....are 100% edible and delicious, a definite Cooking Light success. The hubby was a bit skeptical as he claims to have never seen lettuce wraps before, but I'm pretty sure he is now a lettuce wrap convert. The meat mixture is pretty spicy, almost too much for me, so you can always cut back on the amount of chili paste.

Spicy Asian Lettuce Wraps
Source: Adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients

2 1/2 ounces rice noodles
1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon chile paste with garlic
2 teaspoons dark sesame oil
1 lb. ground turkey
8-12 large Boston or Romaine lettuce leaves

Heat skillet over medium-high heat; brown turkey; drain off any excess grease/liquid.
 
Meanwhile, add rice noodles to boiling water; boil 6-7 minutes until al dente. Drain noodles and rinse under cold water. Chop noodles into bite size pieces.
 
Combine soy sauce, chile paste and sesame oil in large bowl. Add cooked noodles and turkey to soy sauce mixture, toss well to coat.
 
Spoon about 1/3 cup turkey mixture down center of each lettuce leaf; roll up.
 
Enjoy!