One-Pan Chicken Shawarma

Recipes often don’t give people enough understanding in how you can alter them with ingredients you have on hand. I used to spend too much money at the grocery store buying items I didn’t necessarily need. The original recipe for this chicken shawarma that I’ve used multiple times is a good example of that- buy boneless skinless chicken thighs it said. I forgot to tell Greg that when he went to the store for me and I ended up with bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs.

No worries, I thought, cutting them up and removing the skin, but leaving the bones on. The cooked bones give the meat extra flavor. The next time I made the recipe (using the rest of the thighs from the package), I marinated the thighs whole with the skin. In the pan I also placed diced potatoes. Next time I’m going to add preserved lemon into the marinade for an even better flavor.

While this recipe is already fairly easy, sometimes making little changes will also make it a recipe you’ll add to your rotation.

1 Tablespoon ground cumin

1 Tablespoon turmeric powder

1 Tablespoon coriander

1 Tablespoon garlic powder

1 Tablespoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

3/4 Tablespoon cayenne pepper (or less– I love the subtle heat this creates)

Salt

The juice of one large lemon

1/2 cup your choice olive oil

1 onion diced into small pieces

6 chicken thighs

4 potatoes diced into small pieces

In a bowl or whatever you’ll be marinating the chicken in (I use the long, flat Tupperware deli stor), mix all the spices, the lemon, and oil. Add the onion and chicken. I marinate it overnight, however, you can do it for as little as 30 minutes if time is short.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease a baking pan (I use a metal pan for this) and add the chicken and spices plus the potatoes. Mix it up a bit to give the potatoes some of the marinade. Bake for approximately 45 minutes, until the chicken is done and potatoes and onions are starting to brown.

You don’t need to serve it with anything (a salad would be refreshing though!) although we like it with sides of naan bread and tzatziki sauce.

Lunch for Weeks and Pork A La Mexicana

I pack Greg a lunch almost every day that he has school.

Some people laugh at this but I know secretly they are envious. We also make breakfast burritos every few weeks and freeze them for his breakfasts (as I have written about before). Yes, it takes some planning but it’s cheaper than him eating out and I know he’s eating (rather than not eating) and eating something that’s better for him. I like to work through lunch and tend to have smoothies for both breakfast and lunch but this way the food is also there if I want it as well.

Yesterday the freezer became empty of anything for his lunches so over the weekend I had defrosted a pork tenderloin I’d gotten at the grocery store and set to making Rick Bayless’s Pork a la Mexicana for dinner the last night, knowing I could freeze the rest of it into portions for Greg.

The caveat, however, was that it was a 4-pound tenderloin and so I multiplied everything by four. I knew it would be close with the dutch oven but when Greg came home and saw me draining the cans of fire-roasted tomatoes, asking me if that’s what I was really doing (that’s what the recipe says, I told him), he suggested I add them, he was okay if it was more like soup.

With the dutch oven almost overflowing, he couldn’t find enough space in the freezer for all the portions he doled out for his lunches (while I rested after all that cutting).

The result was worth it: a tasty dish that will last several weeks. And it included dinner last night, too.

Find the recipe here.

The Joy of Entertaining

My parents didn't entertain much when I was growing up. Generally any gatherings of people were centered around family events: baptisms, first communions, Christmas, Easter, graduations, and my grandparents' birthdays. But since I was near the end of in the birth order of both sides, by the time I was growing up, much of this had occurred (outside of the yearly events).

Nor did I grow up in a family where friends came over frequently for dinners or just to gather. While I realize now how good my mom was at planning for multiple people to sit at her dining room table (that easily sat 12), most of what I learned about entertaining came from trial and error. 

I still remember one of the first times I hosted a meal as a newly married person and I asked a friend if she thought it was acceptable if I used placemats instead of a tablecloth. I really didn't know the answer (and I know now it doesn't matter).

I also now know that it's more than serving a group of people a meal and worrying about how good the table looks: it's about the time we spend with people. There is a satisfaction in feeding people but mostly when I look back at the times I've hosted meals or been to the homes of others, it's about the laughter, the conversations, the stories we share.

It's about the spots in the tablecloth that people apologize for when they spill something but I wave off because I know that those spots will tell the future stories each time I pull that tablecloth out.

I don't worry about setting a table when I'm preparing for a gathering. Instead I focus my energy into hoping that we enjoy our time around the table. And that we want to do it again.