I know that I tend to wax a little hyperbolic around these parts, but after I made this dinner these words came out of my mouth:

"I may never cook chicken any other way ever again."

OK, that's a little dramatic.

But I may never cook chicken breasts any other way ever again. Over the past few years, I've developed a real distaste for chicken breasts, mostly because the texture of your average grocery store offerings has just become dreadful—it tastes waterlogged and pumped full of ... something. It manages to somehow become both mealy and stringy at the same time, and so enormous as to make me uneasy and them impossible to cook to satisfaction. Dry on the outside, suspect on the inside; this is the new world of white meat chicken.

And the smaller, higher quality, more expensive organic chicken breasts don't get a pass, either—they often seem big and bland to me, too.

So what's a carnivore to do? I will continue to buy those better breasts, but instead I'll cook them like this: marinated in tenderizing citrus and jammed onto a skewer shwarma style, and then charred over a great big heat.

I have a healthy (I hope) fear of fire, so I will admit I use my sweet little outdoor Weber as a rain gauge. I cooked these inside, on a grill pan, but they would be wonderful with a nice charcoal smoke to them, too. I have convinced myself that the gas flame beneath my pan means it counts as grilling. Don't burst my bubble.

An hour in the marinade is just about perfect—any longer and that lemon will have a chance to overdo it. I used sour cream here, but you can substitute plain Greek yogurt. Just look for the lowest sugar content you can find, because you want the color on the chicken to develop slowly, without burning.

The flavor is bright and summery, which means it pairs beautifully with almost anything—lemony orzo, garlicky new potatoes, even just a simple tomato salad. I went with yellow squash, which I don't even like but thought would be pretty. And it turns out if you sauté that business in butter and toss in basil and cheese, you will like just about anything! I scarfed down those veggies faster than I ever thought I would.

Turns out I'm never making yellow squash any other way again, either.

I used a vegetable peeler to cut the squash into thin ribbons. That's required, but it does mean that it cooked in about 30 seconds. You want it to be tender but still crunchy, and not have a time to sweat out, which will give you kind of a watery mushiness. Just in the butter, toss, garlic salt, pepper, less than a minute, and off the heat to stir in the cheese and basil. It's light, delicious, and perfect for the season.

Enjoy!


Easy Grilled Chicken Skewers

1½ pounds chicken breasts, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons sour cream
Juice of ½ lemon
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon dry oregano

1. Thread chicken onto skewers, pressing pieces very close together. In a small bowl, whisk together olive oil and remaining ingredients. Pour marinade over chicken skewers in a shallow dish, turning to coat; cover with plastic wrap, and chill 1 hour.

2. Heat a grill pan over medium-high heat until very hot. Grill skewers, turning occasionally, 20 minutes or until outside is well marked and chicken is cooked through. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Yellow Squash Ribbons with Feta and Basil

3 yellow squash
1 tablespoon butter
Garlic salt
Pepper
¼ cup feta cheese crumbles
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

1. Trim ends from squash, and peel into thin ribbons with a vegetable peeler.

2. Heat butter in a skillet until melted; add squash and garlic salt and pepper to taste, and cook, tossing constantly, 1 minute. Remove from heat, and stir in cheese and basil. Makes 4 servings.

 

Have I mentioned how much I love a sandwich?

As a personality, I tend to get attached very quickly, fervently, and loyally to things—people, places, pets, situational comedies about three post-menopausal women living together in Miami with a wise-cracking octogenarian—and when I first tasted this pizza, I knew I was a goner.

The recipe is the brainchild of one Foodimentary Guy, née JBSH, who has a habit of throwing ingredients against a wall and seeing what sticks that I often admire. (Less so when he does whackadoodle things like putting mayonnaise in the mashed potatoes. Gack! Sorry, Foodimentary Guy ... )

Picture it: a late-summer afternoon. A day spent treading water in a fruitless effort to mitigate the 12,000 calories of Lake-A-Ritas (TM) consumed since lunch. Happily tired muscles and lightly pink skin. Time screams by, as it does on Sundays, racing toward return to the mainland, and the work week, and the grind. The dogs can barely muster the energy to wag their tails or lift their heads as you pass by, and the shadow cast by the boat's awning says it's almost time to hit the road. Half-hearted packing, some hurried but ultimately disappointing calculations (is there any way to stay another day?), and it's time to face the truth: The weekend at the lake is over.

That's when this came out of the kitchen. We huddled around it like delighted starving people—eating fast at first, because we didn't realize how hungry we were, and then faster still long after we'd become full, because we didn't want to lose a single bite to any of the other grabby hands in the room.

Since then I've wanted to attempt to re-create it, knowing that it really lives only in the Foodimentary Guy's brain and even then maybe only vaguely—it's the sort of meal that just happened organically, putting a little of this delicious with a little of that amazing until you end up with a pizza that haunts your dreams.

OK, enough hyperbole.



The "recipe," such as it is, relies pretty heavily on a local chain—Zoë's Kitchen—and its signature feta cole slaw. Unfortunately, my neighborhood Zoë's was fresh out of slaw, so I relied pretty heavily on some Internet research and some hope for the best, and tried to whip up my own. It was a passable substitute, but improved overnight, as the cabbage had time to soften a bit more under the weight of the vinaigrette.

Did the original Lake Martin version have bacon on it? I don't remember, but I assumed that with JBSH as its creator, that was a pretty safe bet. I ate the finished product by my lonesome, but shared the leftovers. I don't know how faithful anyone thought it was to that warm, peaceful, lakeside day, but I hope it was a reasonable enough facsimile.

I know it made me want a Lake-A-Rita (TM).



Chicken-Bacon-Cole Slaw Pizza
¼ cup red wine vinegar
¼ to ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
1 small head green cabbage, thinly sliced
8 ounces crumbled feta
8 green onions, chopped
1 (11-ounce) can Pillsbury thin-crust pizza dough
2 chicken breasts from a prepared rotisserie chicken, chopped
Ranch dressing, to taste
Provolone cheese slices
8 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled

1. Whisk together first 5 ingredients. Combine cabbage, feta, and green onions, and toss with vinaigrette. Chill cole slaw at least 1 hour.
2. Preheat oven to 400. Unroll pizza dough onto a lightly greased or foil-covered baking sheet; bake 5 minutes.
3. Toss chicken with 1 tablespoon ranch dressing. Remove dough from oven, and top with chicken mixture and provolone cheese slices; bake 5 to 7 more minutes or until edges of crust are golden brown and cheese is melted and bubbling.
4. Toss cole slaw with a little more ranch dressing, to taste, and top pizza with slaw and crumbled bacon. Makes 6 to 8 servings.