Greek Chicken Salad Pizza

For a quick weeknight meal that has some redeeming nuritional value, salad seems like a good idea.  I like salad, but I never seem to like it enough to make it an entire dinner unless it's a dinner I'm not making.  This meal is a good compromise between filling and salad.  One thing I can say, though, is that the pizza itself doesn't have a ton of flavor without the salad and the salad on it's own is very strong, so I would recommend eating them together.

Serves 3-4

1 tube pizza crust
Garlic salt
3/4 cup feta cheese crumbles, divided
1/2 cup grilled chicken pieces
1 Roma tomato, sliced very thinly
1/4 cup sliced black olives
1 cup mozzarella cheese
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
4-6 cups salad

1. Preheat oven to 425 (or the temperature called for on the tube of pizza crust). Grease a jellyroll pan.  Using your hands, spread out the pizza crust as thinly as you can without it tearing.  I ended up with something that covered almost all of the jellyroll pan.  Sprinkle sparingly with garlic salt. Bake pizza crust for 10 minutes.
2. Remove hot pizza crust from the oven and sprinkle evenly with 1/2 cup feta.  Top feta with chicken, tomato, and black olive, trying to make sure the toppings are evenly distributed.  Sprinkle the pizza evenly with the mozzarella cheese and return to the oven.for 10 minutes or until cheese is melted and browned.
3. While pizza is baking the last time, whisk lemon juice and olive oil together in a large bowl.  Add salad and toss well.
4. When pizza is done baking, remove it from the oven and cut into 4-6 pieces.  Let sit a couple of minutes, then place a piece of pizza on a plate and top with salad.  Sprinkle remaining feta cheese on top of the salad on the plate. Eat immediately.

Shrimp and Grits

A restaurant here in town served shrimp and grits for a short time.  I never had them there, but I found the idea intriguing.  The sauce seemed to be tomato-based, which I like in general, but most of the recipes I found were cheese-based and that did not sound good.  I had bits of CSA stuff and I ended up throwing a lot of things together.  It was actually remarkably good and not as heavy as Southern Sunday normally is.

Serves 2-3

1 lb shrimp (60-80 size)
3 tomatoes, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
1 small onion, minced
1/2 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 tablespoon butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
Splash Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon Cajun seasoning
Salt and garlic salt to taste
Cheese Grits

1. Shell and de-vein shrimp.  Set aside.
2. Mix together tomatoes, pepper, and onion.  Stir to combine and set aside.
3. Mix cornstarch with shrimp.  Set bowl aside again.
4. In skillet, heat butter and oil.  Saute garlic until soft.  Add shrimp to skillet and saute until shrimp is cooked.  Drain any liquid from tomato mixture and pour over shrimp in skillet.  Cook until tomatoes release juices and those juices thicken.  Season with Worcestershire sauce, Cajun seasoning, salt, and garlic salt.  Serve over grits.

Pesto Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes

My mother-in-law had an overflow of cherry tomatoes, so she gave me a fair number of them.  I am going to a barbecue for Labor Day, so I decided to try and make stuffed cherry tomatoes.  I like pesto and I had a package of basil, so making them pesto seemed like a good plan.  They were surprisingly easy, once I got the cherry tomatoes ready to be stuffed.

Makes 25 stuffed tomatoes

25 cherry tomatoes
2 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
2 tablespoons minced fresh basil leaves
1 teaspoon garlic salt
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese

1. Clean cherry tomatoes.  With a paring knife, cut the top off of the tomato.  Use the tip of the paring knife to loosen the center of the tomato, like the hull of a strawberry.  Working over a bowl or garbage can, remove the seeds and liquid from the center of the tomato with the tip of your finger.  Set tomato cut-side down on a paper towel to drain and repeat process with remaining tomatoes.
2. In sandwich-sized plastic resealable bag, combine the cream cheese and mayonnaise.  Add basil and garlic salt to bag.  Close bag, squeezing out excess air.  Squish the bags between your fingers until ingredients are combined.  Cut 1/8th inch corner off of the bag.  Squeeze filling from plastic bag into tomatoes as if from a piping bag.  Sprinkle filled tomatoes with Parmesan cheese.  Store tomatoes in an air-tight bag until you are ready to serve them, up to 24 hours.

Week 13 Box

I didn't do a great job with using last week's box, so this week the goal is to get it gone before another box shows up. We'll see how that goes.

• Swiss chard
• Kale
• Onion
• Tomatoes
• Potatoes
• Okra
• Green peppers
• Sage
• Thyme
• Tarragon
  

Week 12 Box

With all of the flooding that we have had around here, we received a notice in our box that the selection and quality of the vegetables might be effected.  I'm hoping that I'll still be able to continue to have enough each week to do the CSA portion of the blog.  Time will tell.

• Kale
• Yellow squash
• Garlic
• Green beans
• Tomatoes
• Red pepper
• Watermelon
• Potatoes
• Leeks
• Honey
• Basil

Tomato Cucumber Salad

Our CSA this year has been giving us cucumbers (honestly, I don't remember if we got cucumbers last year) which presents to me a special kind of dilemma.  They don't really cook and they are just part of a mix of vegetables that I got this week.  I suppose when life gives you miscellaneous vegetables, make a salad.  This one tasted really good alone, but it could also be served over greens as more of a meal.

Serves 3-4

1 teaspoon olive oil
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1/8 teaspoon ground mustard
1 clove garlic, minced
1 small cucumber, diced
2 tomatoes, diced
1 very small onion, finely chopped
Salt and ground black pepper to taste

1. Combine oil, vinegar, and mustard in small bowl.  Place garlic, cucumber, tomato, and onion on top of mixture in bowl.  Toss well and season to taste.
2. Refrigerate salad for at least 4 hours before serving to mellow the flavors.

Week 9 Box

The greens were back in our box this week, so the farm must be recovering from the storm of a couple of weeks ago.  It is still really wet, though, which I have heard from others in the area is taking a real toll on root vegetables and bulb plants.  Our onions have been tasty but very small, which is also how the potatoes have been.  I was awfully excited for the okra this week.

• Potatoes
• Garlic
• Onion
• Okra
• Eggplant
• Cucumber
• Swiss chard
• Kale
• Tomatoes (these were actually from a coworker)
• Rosemary