Chicken Souvlaki Dinner

Opa is one of my favorite places to eat.. love their tzatziki sauce (which you can buy at Sobeys for those of you who are interested) their calamari, their chicken pita wrap, the chicken skewers.. yum!

So I decided to make my own chicken souvlaki. It turned out great, I think I'll be making this a lot more in the future.

2 large chicken breasts
2 lemons
2 palmfuls of  greek seasong (you can use more or less)
pinch of salt
Olive oil
2 pitas
seasoning salt
1/2 cup tzatziki sauce
I recommend marinating the chicken a day in advance.

Cut your chicken into good sized chunks (enough for 4 skewers). Put them into a large zip lock bag (the freezer kind). Cut the lemons in half and squeeze into the zip lock bag taking care to prevent the seeds from dropping into the bag. Add in the greek seasoning, a little bit of salt and a generous drizzle of olive oil. Seal the bag and sort of move the chicken around in the bag using your hands (from the outside of course! lol). Let this sit in the fridge overnight to marinate.

When you're ready to make your skewers, pull your bag of chicken chunks out and begin to slide them evenly onto wooden sheesh kebob skewers. Heat up your pan over medium-high heat (or a George Forman grill if you have it - that's what I used). Once the pan is hot add your chicken skewers and let cook evenly on each side (about 4 or 5 mins per side).

While your chicken's cooking you can make your pita. Warm up a pan over medium-high heat and drizzle a little bit of olive oil over your pitas. Once the pan is heated toss in your pitas (oiled side down) and let warm for about 1 - 2 minutes on that side, drizzle the un-oiled side with olive oil, flip and season with seasoning salt. Let other side warm for about 1 - 2 minutes. Take out and cut into 4 quarters.

Serve alongside your choice of salad (greek, cesar, etc.) along with tzatziki and you're all set!

Enjoy!!

Super Soft Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Again with the pumpkin (I know, I know.. I just love it so much!). I tried some store bought pumpkin chocolate chip cookies last year and they were really good, so I figured I'd give them a try myself.

They turned out great, nice and soft and almost cakey.. they were delicious.

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 corn syrup
1 large egg
1 cup pumpkin puree
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add in the corn syrup and egg, beat together, then mix in the pumpkin puree.

In another bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and pumpkin pie spice. Slowly add the dry mixture into the pumpkin mixture. Once combined, add in milk and mix that in well.

And now the most important part... add in those yummy chocolate chips and mix them in so they're distributed all throughout your delicious pumpkin dough.

Drop rounded (I did very large rounded) teaspoons of dough onto your cookie sheet (about an inch or two apart).

Bake for 11 minutes. Once they're done, allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes, then transfer to racks to cool completely.

Enjoy!!

Peach Cobbler

My summer addiction for the last couple years has been white flesh peaches. I don't like normal peaches, but I LOVE white flesh peaches. The skin texture's a bit different, the flesh is much sweeter and they're SO much juicer. They're just fantastic!

Anyways, I remember as a kid my mom had made peach cobbler a few times and I just loved it. So what to do with all the extra white flesh peaches I had?? Peach cobbler of course!!

We took it over to a friends Suzy and Carl's for dinner and Carl actually uttered the words "This is something else" and according to Suzy he has mentioned it again a few times since! It was just as good as I remembered when my Mom made it, but even better because it was with white flesh peaches. And nice thing is, it's super easy to make!

Serve it up warm with ice cream = deeeelish!!

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
2 tbsp baking powder
6 to 8 peaches
1/4 cup brown sugar

Pre-heat oven to 350 F and grease 9 x 13 inch pan.

Beat the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add in the eggs and vanilla and mix well.

Add in the dry ingredients and blend together (don't over mix).

Slice up the peaches, put the pieces into a bowl and sprinkle brown sugar and a little bit of flour (about a tbsp of flour - this prevents the peaches from sinking too much) overtop of them. mix up until peaches are coated.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and then drop the peach mixture over the batter evenly (DO NOT mix peaches into the batter, just let them sit on top).

Bake for about 45 to 50 minutes (or until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean).

Enjoy!