Grilled Greek Chicken Sandwiches

Ok we had this for dinner tonight and it was great. I got it from Pillsbury and I loved it. I am a huge fan of Greek food. It is a Chicken Gyro. And as you look at it you can tell I just copy and pasted from the site.

INGREDIENTS: Cucumber Sauce 1/4 cup Yoplait® Original Fat Free plain yogurt 1/3 cup finely chopped seeded cucumber 1 medium green onion, sliced (1 tablespoon) 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel Dash salt and pepper Sandwiches 2 teaspoons lemon juice 1 teaspoon olive or vegetable oil 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano leaves 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts 1 pita (pocket) bread cut in half 1 small tomato, sliced 2 thin slices red onion DIRECTIONS: 1. Heat gas or charcoal grill. In small bowl, mix sauce ingredients; set aside. (Sauce may become watery if it stands longer than 30 minutes.) 2. In another small bowl, mix lemon juice, oil and oregano. Brush lemon mixture over chicken, coating all sides. If desired, sprinkle with salt and pepper. 3. Place chicken on grill over medium heat. Cover grill; cook 15 to 20 minutes, turning once, until juice of chicken is clear when center of thickest part is cut (170°F). Wrap pita halves in foil; place on grill 1 to 2 minutes or until warm. 4. Place chicken, tomato and onion inside pita pockets. Top with sauce, or serve sauce on the side for dipping.

Honey Whole Wheat Bread

OK so I posted another Whole Wheat Recipe on here. And I like it but it was a recipe that I had to acquire a taste to. This one I LOVE and everyone else has loved it to. The best part is that it is easy and quick to make. I adapted it from a recipe that I found on "A Barefooters Quest To Find A Better Way"blog, which she adapted from a recipe that she found in a book called Artisan Bread in 5 minutes A day. When I say adapted I use it loosely in the sense that I added honey and figured out the baking time. I'm a Genius. :0) Also said loosely. So I am going to give you step by step instructions. With pictures so there is no confusion to the ease of this recipe. I used a Kitchen Aid with a dough hook. It could also be done by hand just use oil on your hands so as not to add too much flour to the recipe. This bread is perfect with jam and is so moist and yummy you will hardly believe it is whole wheat bread.

Ingredients:
2 cups water
1 T yeast
1 T salt
2 T honey
3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

Directions:
In bowl add first 4 ingredients let sit for 1 minute.

Then add flour all at once.

Turn mixer on speed 1 for 2 minutes. Then up the speed to 4 for 1 minute. Last turn it on to speed 8 for 2 minutes. Let run on high until it clears side and looks like picture below.

When you remove the dough hook this is what it looks like.
Sticky and wet. Perfect.

Leave in bowl like this and cover with towel. Place in warm, dark spot. I put it in my pantry and closed the door. Allow to rise for 1-2 hours.

I use PAM spray and sprayed my counter and dumped the dough on my counter top. Then I sprayed dough and formed into a football shape. And spray loaf pan.

It should look like this in the pan. I put it in upside down first and coated the top then flipped the dough so if you have a seam it is on the bottom.

Cover pan with clean dish towel or I even use a clean washrag.

Let rise till it reaches past the top. I let it rise till this point as in picture below.

Place in cold oven and turn temperature to 365 degrees. Bake for 35 minutes. Remove bread from pan and tap lightly on bottom of bread. If it makes a hollow thump bread is done. If you are unsure return bread to pan and cook for 5 more minutes and bread should be fine. Although 35 minutes has always made the bread perfect for us.

Flip bread over on cooling rack allow to cool and enjoy!

Plain and Garlic Cream Cheese Mashed Potatoes

Per recent request I am adding a mashed potato recipe.
First the basic recipe and then my Garlic Cream Cheese mashed potatoes. I generally leave the skin on mostly because it is easier. But I do like them peeled on occasion. The picture is the Garlic Cream Cheese potatoes and well the taste good enough on their own they don't need gravy.


Ingredients:
8 medium sized potatoes
1/2 cup butter(I like unsalted)
1/4 cup milk

Directions:
Peel and/or wash potatoes, dice then place in pot and cover potatoes with water. Boil on high until fork tender(meaning when you stick a fork in the potatoes there is no resistance and usually break from sticking the fork in), usually 20-30 minutes. Strain water from potatoes and dump potatoes into a bowl. Next mash potatoes or if you have a beater beat potatoes. Then add butter and mash/beat. Then add milk and continue to mash/ beat. Voila you are done. The amount of milk should vary based on the consistency you are looking for.

Garlic Cream Cheese Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:
8 medium sized potatoes
8 oz cream cheese
3 T garlic salt
1T garlic powder or wet minced garlic
1/4 cup Milk

Directions:
Peel and/or wash potatoes and dice. Place potatoes in pot and cover with water. Boil on high for approx. 20-30 minutes until fork tender. Strain water from potatoes and place potatoes in bowl. Mash/beat potatoes. Add Cream Cheese, garlic salt, and garlic. Mash/beat till mixed. Add milk and mash/beat till thoroughly mixed. Enjoy!

Shrimp Burritos

This recipe comes from allrecipes.com So because I'm lazy the ingredients and directions are copy and pasted, I've added my own thoughts in Italic. Oh this does serves 6.

* 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
* 1/2 cup chopped onion
* 3/4 cup long-grain white rice UNCOOKED
* 3/4 teaspoon cumin
* 3/4 teaspoon garlic salt
* 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
* 1/2 cup canned diced tomatoes
*
* 1 (16 ounce) can refried beans
* 3/4 teaspoon garlic salt
* 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
*
* 12 ounces frozen cooked shrimp without tails, thawed
* 2 teaspoons minced garlic
*
* 1/2 cup plain yogurt OPTIONAL
* 1/2 cup mayonnaise OPTIONAL
* 2 teaspoons pureed chipotle peppers in adobo sauce OPTIONAL
*
* 6 (10 inch) flour tortillas, warmed
* 3 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
* 1/3 cup salsa


1. Heat the vegetable oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, and cook until tender, stirring frequently. Stir in rice, and season with cumin and 3/4 teaspoon of garlic salt. Cook and stir until the rice is lightly toasted, about 5 minutes. Pour in the chicken broth and the diced tomatoes. Bring to a boil, then cover and cook over low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, until all of the liquid has been absorbed.

2. In a small saucepan, stir together the refried beans, 3/4 teaspoon of garlic salt, and black pepper. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally until heated through. I thought this made for a lot of dirty pans so I added this step in with the rice.

3. Place shrimp in a bowl, and stir in garlic until shrimp is coated. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat, and coat with cooking spray. Saute shrimp until heated through and lightly browned. We added 1 precooked and precubed chicken breast with the shrimp when we coated the shrimp in garlic. I'm not a fan of shrimp and my children are hit and miss with it. Once our shrimp/chicken was warmed we added that too with the rice. Honestly all this did was make the pictures kind of "what-in-the-world-is-that"ish. But as you can see it wasn't nasty looking.

4. In a small bowl, stir together the yogurt, mayonnaise, and chipotle peppers until smooth. Refrigerate until ready to use. We skipped this. I wasn't in the mood for spicy. But thinking about it now I think the yogurt and the mayo would of really cooled the chipotle peppers down. I kind of wish we had done this.

5. Place about 1/4 cup of cheese onto each warm tortilla. Then place about 1/2 cup of shrimp on the cheese. Top with 1/4 cup of beans, and 1/4 cup of rice. Spread on about a tablespoon of the chipotle sauce, and salsa to taste. Roll up, and serve. Umm, yeah the the way I put together a burrito is very important. Whatever. Besides we saved on dishes and mixed everything together. Oh, my DH (Designated Husband) did think sour cream was a fabulous addition.

Overall my impressions were VERY positive (fabulous, yummy, winner all come to mind). My picky 4 and 2 year olds cleaned their plates. We will definitively be making this again.

Blueberry Muffins

I recently got a windfall of a couple of large bags of frozen blueberries, so I have been looking for ways to use them. I had to try a couple of muffin recipes to find the right one, but this one hit the spot! It comes from the food network kitchens, the only change I made was putting in 1 1/2 cup blueberries vs. the 1c. the recipe calls for. Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup milk
  
• 1 egg
• 1 3/4 cup sifted flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup blueberries
• 1 tablespoon flour

Directions

Cream butter and sugar. Add milk and egg and beat until smooth. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Add to creamed mixture. Mix until moistened. Toss blueberries with flour and fold into batter. Fill a well-greased muffin pan 2/3 full with the batter. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

Stir Fry

I was in the mood for this. Something that is fast and easy. So I called my sister and she gave me the recipe that she got from my other sister. It was yummy. I used a stir fry mix that I bought at Costco. You can do broccoli, carrots, whatever sounds good to you. Oh and my own extra touch was the peanut butter and garlic.

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp olive oil
3-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (cut into thin strips)
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1 Tbsp creamy peanut butter
1 cup water
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup sugar
2-3 Tbsp cornstarch
3 cups vegetables

Directions:

In a frying pan heat up oil on medium high, add chicken peanut butter and garlic. Let chicken brown slightly. Next mix italicized ingredients together and pour into frying pan with chicken. Stir together and add vegetables. Stir while cooking on medium low for 5 minutes. Cover for 2 minutes. Stir and serve over rice. Enjoy!

Shrimp Pasta

Comes from a random cookbook that I own.

1 3/4 C chicken broth
2 cloves garlic minced
3 T fresh chopped parsley (about 1 T dried)
2 T cornstarch (flour works too same amount)
2 T Lemon juice
1/8 t ground red pepper
1 pound medium shrimp, shelled
4 C hot cooked pasta (about 8ozs uncooked)

In a medium sauce pan mix broth gralic, parsley, cornstarch, lemon juice, and pepper. Over medium-high heat, heat to a boil. Cook until mixture begins to thicken stirring constantly.

Continue stirring constantly while you add shrimp. Cook about 5 minutes more or until shrimp turns pink. Toss with pasta.

Serves 4 with a total cook time of 10 minutes.


I thought it needed a little butter probably 2T not only to give it a creamy texture but to also bring out the flavor of the shrimp. My husband LOVED it as did my 2 year old, though my 4 year old snubbed his nose and told me it was yucky.