Yesterday in my yoga class – yes, I am a YUPPIE homesteader – our yoga instructor urged us to say “yes.” Specifically, she urged us to be open to new opportunities and to not immediately reject something. I came home that night and immediately said no. The “no” was to another new proposal that I just didn’t have time to write. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. I just did not have the bandwidth for one more proposal right now.
Today, I got a little philosophical about the say yes/no thing. Normally – and particularly with work – I’m a say yes kind of girl. When you’re a consultant, you have to say yes when the work comes through. At least, you do until you’re established enough to say no. So me? I say yes. A lot. Too often, I think. And so maybe, in that contorted way that yoga philosophy really applies to life, my “no” was really my “yes.” Maybe, instead of saying no to one more proposal, I was saying yes to believing in myself and that I could – every once in awhile – choose self-preservation over work opportunity.
Tonight is another of those say no to say yes, kind of nights. There’s no dinner. There are, of course, leftovers. There’s my mom’s tuna noodle casserole, my husband’s “Breakfast Meets Dinner” mashup he made last night and leftover chicken from our grilled Greek chicken salads on Monday. So, by saying no to cooking dinner, I’m actually saying yes to not wasting food. Get it? This kind of logic may just take me far.
But speaking of leftovers and good eats. I promised recipes from time to time. Things that I make largely harvested from our backyard and the community farm down the street. The grilled Greek chicken salads is one of those beauties and it’s essentially my own creation.
The basis of this dinner is the grilled chicken. Basically, I don’t like any parts in my chicken. No fat, no sinew, no cartilage. No stinking surprises. For me to say “yes” to eating chicken, I’ve got to be sure that each bite is essentially safe. My husband thinks it’s a bit funny, but he doesn’t have my food issues. So, she who cooks, wins. We make the chicken my way.
I’d love to tell you I actually measured the ingredients to this chicken. I don’t. What I do is take 2-3 chicken breasts and cut them up into what I call “double bite-sized” pieces. They’re not the full size of tenders, but they’re large enough not to fall through the grill. With all fat removed, I put them in a bowl and toss with olive oil. Is it one tablespoon or two? I’m not sure. Enough to coat them well.
From there, I season with salt, garlic, pepper, oregano and basil. The oregano and basil come directly from our garden and are dried each fall for this expressed purpose. How much you say? About the same of each. Likely less salt and paper than the other two. More garlic because I love the flavor. Possibly a little more basil than oregano because I happen to love basil nearly as much as garlic. If I’m estimating, ¾ of a teaspoon of salt and pepper; a full teaspoon each of basil and oregano; and a full teaspoon and a pinch more of garlic. I just want garlic to feel like it’s got the edge.
All of that gets tossed and then grilled – yes, even in winter – out on the grill. Inside, the salad fixings are easy. The little community farm down the street has baby arugula in winter in their hoop houses, so if we’ve got that on hand, it goes in. Otherwise, I slice cherry tomatoes in half (they have more flavor than large tomatoes in winter), I chop up ½ to ¾ of an English cucumber, and split an avocado between two salad bowls. (Darryl gets 5/8ths; I get 3/8ths) Feta cheese and my guilty pleasure of Greek olives round out the salads. On top, a salad dressing of plain Greek yogurt, half of a squeezed lime and dried dill from our garden makes the dressing. How much dill, you ask? At least a teaspoon. Sometimes I go crazy and its two teaspoons. Season this part to taste.
Then, just assemble the salad and voila, a low-carb salad that is absolutely delicious. Is it low calorie? Hmm… have you ever looked at how many calories one stinking Greek olive is? I put like 20 of those suckers on my salad. But yum… a bit of chicken, avocado, Feta cheese and olive in my mouth is just a little Mediterranean delight. I like it enough that it’s in the once-a-week rotation around here. In summer, I can manage to almost fully load my salad from the garden. In winter, we supplement. That’s just how we roll.
So, tonight as I sit here staring at a roaring fire with my full spectrum light just snapping off for another evening, there’s just not a whole lot to talk about on the homestead. I’ve said no and in saying no, preserved a little time and space for myself. No one is going to starve as there is plenty of food. Life will roll on again to another day. It’s the dog days of winter here. We just have to keep plowing through until spring. Which, by the way, is just two short months away.
Enjoy the salad and give yourself a little summer in winter!
The Yuppie Homesteader 