I’ve had a hard time focusing since the terrible news on Saturday night.  I have sat here for the past hour feeling angry at a lot of things- at the dust on the floor, the cats knocking things over, and the relentless heat.  I think I’m just simply angry.  And I’m so confused by how to process this awful event that I’ve decided I have to do something.  Last night, that something was cooking. And this time, it’s writing.

So no, this isn’t my typical recipe post, but I need to do something, and so I will share with you the delicious meal I made last night.

Fresh Summer Chicken Teriyaki on Warm Maple Zucchini salad

This is a fantastic meal to put together if you have time to prep something early on and then only a short amount of notice to heat it up.  The prep takes a little bit of time (not all that much) but the cooking itself only takes about 5 minutes.

Ingredients:

1 pound of thinly sliced chicken filets

1/4 cup of your favorite teriyaki sauce, mine is Soyaki from TJ’s

1 teaspoon sriracha

2 tablespoons maple syrup

1/2 cup of white wine/give or take

1 large zucchini, peeled into ribbons, inside saved and cubed for relish

2 large tomatoes

5 leaves of basil

1 green pepper, chopped

teaspoon of olive oil

bit of salt

teaspoon of lemon juice

Alternate Ingredient List

Chicken or pork

something saucy

something syrupy

something spicy

booze

green veggies

tomatoes

herbs

Let’s make it

1. Put on some comfort pants.  For me, it’s my new Elephant Pants. They are now my blankie.  Check out that super cool sandals tan, it’s like I didn’t even remove my shoes!

The prep was nice and relaxed because I did it about an hour before planning to cook it.  The whole point of this meal was that it was way too hot to turn on the oven or to move around too quickly, so I  took my time with prep.

1b. Slice the zucchini with a grater until you have about 1 1/2 cups of zucchini slices

Ben and I recently visited some very generous friends up in Vermont, the town I spoke about a few posts ago, before the sh*t hit the fan on the way home.  They have a beautiful garden and even tap their own maple syrup.  Here was our bounty after a stunning weekend up there on their farm:

By the end, without slicing off my finger, this was the amount of zucchini ribbons I made, and it was perfect for about 2 people to go back for seconds.

1c. Open white wine, pour glass.

2. Add 1/8 cup  white wine and two tablespoons of maple syrup to the bowl, set aside to let it bathe in happiness.

*Note, if you want to be a very happy person, lick the spoon after you combine the wine and maple syrup…just do it.

3. Slice chicken into thin pieces, without accidentally splattering chicken water all over your kitchen like I may have done.

4.  Place chicken strips in bowl and combine with teriyaki and sriracha 

5. In a food processor, combine chopped tomatoes, leftover zucchini, green pepper, basil, salt, lemon and a a drop of white wine.  Place in fridge to chill.

6. Let ingredients sit and think about what they’ve done.  Bring your wine outside and wait for NJ Transit to stop screwing over your husband from getting home.

7. With about 15 minutes to go, toss the chicken and sauce into a hot pan, toss for about 5 minutes until cooked through and tender.

8. Remove chicken and immediately throw zucchini mixture into hot chicken pan.  Cook until almost all liquid has evaporated.  Remove just before zucchini starts to look soggy and yellow.

9. Build your masterpiece!  I kept the ingredients separate so that my husband and I could control the proportions of things.  But overall, I went zucchini, chicken, cold tomato drizzle.  Ben put it in little mountains and swirled it all around.  So whatever makes you happy.

The balance of the cold gazpacho-esque topping is very refreshing and fresh on a hot night, especially next to the spicy chicken and warm zucchini.

So remember, don’t just eat your feelings, cook them first!…I just made that up.  I kinda like it.

Thanks for reading, everyone:)