Recipe of the Week: Super Easy Sauteed or Grilled Chicken

This is my go to marinade for chicken and as a quick vinaigrette for salads, both green and pasta. I made it last week and added sliced almonds and dried cranberries to the rice and grilled the aspargus with a little salt, pepper and dried lemon peel.

Marinade:
Juice of two lemons
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon parsley
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper.

Mix everything together and whisk, stir or shake until everything is very well mixed.

Marinate chicken for at least 30 minutes and up to a couple hours. Place the chicken in a saute pan or on the grill and cook. Don't flip until the edges of the face side are starting to cook.

Note: Other options for the marinade could be rice vinegar instead of the lemons, chopped rosemary, sage, lemon zest, limes, limes zest. Play with the recipe and see what you like best. 

Too Much Zucchini - Make Zucchini Cakes

Yes, you read that right, Zucchini Cakes. This is the time of year where all of my garden growing friends are trying to pawn of their summer squash and zucchini on me. I'm pretty sure we have has some sort of squash every night this week.. I'm a little tired of it (coming from someone who barely makes the same thing twice) and have been trying to come up with something creative to do with all the squash.
Don't get me wrong, I like zucchini and pretty every other squash. It's versatile and easy to cook. So in an attempt to do something different, I came up with these. The cakes kind of tasted like potato cakes.  They were a touch on the mushy side. Zucchini has a high water content and normally I would have pressed the water out, but I wanted to see what they came out like this way.

This is what I did:

Shredded 2 good sized, but not baseball bat size zucchini (in the food processor)
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1/4 cup quinoa flour
1/2 cup cooked quinoa (substitute with rice or couscous, I happen to have quinoa left over
1/4 teaspoon tabasco
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cumin
salt
pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic, mashed

1. Mix all ingredients together except olive oil and garlic. Form into patties
2. Heat olive oil and mashed garlic
3. Place patties into heated pan, cook for 4-5 minutes on each side, until golden brown
4. remove from pan, sprinkle a touch more parmesan cheese

I served this with a little arugula, chopped tomatoes, and roasted cumin scented chickpeas.