First official post!!

Welcome to my blog!! This is my first official post and I’m actually really excited about this. Ever since I moved back home from college and started working, I always told my parents that I would cook them a meal on the weekends. It’s already been a year since I’ve been home and let’s just say that I have cooked dinner maybe twice for my family. I thought that this blog would be a good way for me to keep up with my cooking and it’ll be a convenient place for me to store my recipes. I’m hoping to be able to post once a week or so with a new recipe. This blog will also probably contain little ramblings of mine too. Life can’t always be about just food.


But yea, welcome and come hang out.

First recipe post ever!! Here goes….

Grilled Chicken Sandwich with slices of Avocado, Roasted Corn and Tomato Salsa, and a Garlic Herb spread.

Sounds fancy, doesn’t it? Actually it was really really simple to make. I ended up buying all the ingredients for about $18 and was able to make 6 servings. That equals about $3 per person, which I think is really reasonable (this is the accountant in me, bear with me through this). The great thing about this recipe is that you can prepare a lot of the components ahead of time. I made the salsa and also the garlic herb spread a few hours before. I was eating the salsa with pieces of toasted bread and dipping chips into the garlic herb spread all day.

Ingredients

Chicken breasts
Loaf of Italian Bread
Avocado

Salsa

1. Tomatoes (2 big ones)
2. Red onion (half)
3. Jalapeno (1)
4. Cilantro (few sprigs)
5. Lime (half)
6. 2 ears of corn
Garlic Herb Spread

1. Sour cream
2. Dried herbs (basil, oregano, parsley)
3. Paprika
4. Garlic (minced)

Salsa recipe

1. For the salsa, dice the tomatoes, red onions, and jalapeno and put it into a bowl. Mince a few sprigs of Cilantro and place it into the bowl with the rest of the ingredients. Squeeze the juice from half of a lime over the mixture. You can use your discretion with the lime and the cilantro. Some people really like the taste of cilantro, but me, I only like enough to taste. Sometimes I feel like it can be a little over powering. If you accidently use too much lime and it’s too citrusy for your taste, let the salsa sit for a few hours and the citrusy taste should diminish (a little tip from my boyfriend, since the first time I made the salsa, I put way too much lime in it). Let the salsa sit in the fridge for a little for all the flavors to mingle together. Next, prepare the corn for the salsa.
2. Place clean, unshucked (funny work, I know) ears of corn in a bowl of water and soak for about 15 minutes. This makes sure that the “skin” of the corn doesn’t burn before the corn is fully cooked.
3. Put the drained ears of corns on a medium heat grill and close the lid. If you don’t have a grill, you can also do this is a toaster oven. Just put it on 350 Fahrenheit and bake it for 20-30 minutes. Turn the corn as needed. Let the corn cool before you mix it in the salsa.
4. Add salt and pepper to the salsa to taste.

Garlic Herb Spread

1. Mix a teaspoon on each of the dried basil, oregano, and parsley and half a teaspoon of paprika.
2. Mince half a clove of garlic and mix it with the dried herbs. Try to mash the garlic into a paste when you mix it with the herbs. I did this by using a smaller spoon and “squishing” the garlic to the side of the bowl.
3. Add in a cup of sour cream to the dried herbs and garlic, and mix!!
4. You can add additional herbs/garlic to adjust to how you like it.

Sandwich

1. Rub olive oil, salt, pepper, and allspice onto your chicken breasts. I also had to cut the chicken breasts in half because they were pretty thick.
2. Heat up a pan/grill to medium hot setting and cook the chicken for 4-5 minutes on each side, depending on the thickness.
3. Cut the loaf of Italian bread into slices and toast the slices.
4. Spread the Garlic Herb spread to the slices of bread.
5. Add chicken to the bread and lay slices of avocado and the salsa to the sandwich.

Enjoy!! Just to warn you, this sandwich is pretty messy, there was salsa everywhere. This would actually make a really good open face sandwich if you don’t want to deal with the mess factor.