Lavash pizza with spinach and olives

This was fast and VERY good!  $20 at a bistro kind of good.

We followed the recipe exactly and it was a really nice balance of flavors.  Clearly there's a lot you could do with this recipe in terms of topping variations, but I kind of think I don't want to mess with it.  This will definitely be general rotation.

Ingredients

2 Tbsp olive oil
2 pieces of lavash bread (we buy at Trader Joe's)
10 oz frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry (with your hands or a cheesecloth)
4 oz shredded fontina cheese (about 1 cup)
1 tomato cut into half-inch pieces
half-cup chopped pitted green olives
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp each: red pepper flakes, salt, ground black pepper
1 oz Parmesan cheese (about 1/2 cup)

Pre-heat oven to 475F.  Brush lavash with oil on both sides using a brush.  (If you don't have a brush, do your best with your fingers; coating needn't be complete or uniform).  If you run out of oil, feel free to replenish.

Let them crisp up in the oven for 2.5 minutes.  Flip them over and cook for another 2.5 min.

Here's what ours looked like when they came out:

Combine  spinach, fontina, tomato, olives, garlic, pepper flakes, salt and pepper in a bowl (HOLD on the parmesan until the end). 

Then sprinkle evenly over each lavash:

Sprinkle parmesan evenly over the top.  Put back in the over for an additional 6-8 minutes until cheese is melted.

Auntie chicken (aka cream & pepper chicken)

This is a rich, creamy, white-sauce curry that's flavorful but not very spicy.  We were very surprised to learn the recipe.  There are very few spices, and it's much faster than the regular Indian curry because you don't need to slowly brown onions and then tomatoes (since this contains neither); it's just chicken, dairy products, sesame seeds and white and black pepper.

The original recipe for this comes from Maria's aunt.  Here it is, slightly revised:

Recipe:

~1.5 lb boneless chicken thighs

1 cup whole milk yogurt - we use greek

2 TBSP butter

2 tsp ginger garlic paste (substitute with 1-2 cloves garlic and slightly less volume of ginger minced)

2 green chilies (we used serrano)

1/3 cup heavy cream or half and half (we have also used whole milk in a pinch)

1 tsp white pepper (1/2 tsp if you're worried about sensitive kiddos)

1 tsp fresh ground black pepper

1 tsp white sesame seeds

2 TBsp fresh cilantro chopped

salt to taste

Cut chicken into 1" cubes (or whatever size you like to eat).  Mix with yogurt, black and white peppers, ginger and garlic paste, sesame seeds and salt to taste (we used 1/2 tsp).  You can marinate if you want, but we never do and it comes out great anyway.

Heat 2 TBs oil on medium heat and add chicken/yogurt mixture. Simmer uncovered for ~8 minutes or until chicken is almost cooked. It will become more watery as the chicken releases liquid, that's fine. You can simmer to reduce it down, your chicken thighs can handle it, or just leave it more liquidy.

Add the cream (or milk or half-and-half) and then butter. Simmer for another 5-15 min until sauce is desired thickness.

When done add fresh cilantro and green chilies cut in half the long direction and cover the pot so the ingredients can make friends.

Here is Maria mixing the chicken and yogurt:

In the pan!

After it's been simmering for awhile:

All done!

Lemon linguini with chicken

Today was a bit of an improv, but a good one!

We got one of Trader Joe's marinated whole chickens:


Which we cooked according to instructions (an hour in the oven) and then removed the meat from.

I got 16 oz linguini from TJ's and cooked it.

I made a simple white sauce:  melted ~ 3 Tbsp butter, sauteed 1 Tbsp minced garlic on med-low for 30 seconds, added ~1.5 Tbsp flour and cooked until it started to change color very very slightly, then added ~1 C whole milk.  Salt + pepper to taste, and a simmered it on low until it cooked down a bit.

Meanwhile I chopped some of the lemon chicken into cubes.  I zested 1 full lemon into the white sauce, drained the linguini ~30 seconds early and combined it with some of the cooking liquid and the white sauce and chicken and let it hang out for 1 minute covered.

I forgot to add parmesean to the white sauce (which was part of the plan), but the results were delicious anyway!  Definitely something I'd make again.  Only next time maybe with some vegetable on the side or mixed in....  I always like some fresh chopped tomato added at the very end...

Sheet pan chicken shwarma

This is one of our regular go-to's.  Easy, delicious, fast, lots of possible variations.

Original recipe:  https://www.recipezazz.com/recipe/oven-roasted-chicken-shawarma-nytimes-25412

We eat this over rice or in a variety of different wraps (today we had whole wheat lavash bread for something else we were doing, and that gave it a nice earthy hearty flavor).  Sometimes we bother to make the lemon-garlic-yogurt, sometimes we just use plain yogurt and it's fine.

The thing to know about using this as left-overs is that you want to re-sear the meat/onion by putting 1-2 tsp oil in an iron skillet on high and letting it really char a bit before serving.

Here's what it looks like coming out of the pan:

Here's a day later when I'm just putting it on to re-sear:

Hopefully you can see additional blackened parts:

Today's version was on the whole wheat lavash bread with some yogurt, tomato and cucumber.  Delicious!

Chinese sesame noodles

From Cook's, recipe picture below.  Really good!  4/5.  Not magic, but really great as a lunch or snack or potluck item.  And really fast.  The sauce is _wonderful_, and the fresh Chinese egg noodles have a nice firm, springy texture.  Seems amenable to variations as well.

Next time I'd make it without radish, but with maybe some shredded chicken or something.

Recipe:

Prior to assembling:

Ta-da!