grilled chicken and pita chop

best when eaten with a spoon :)

Hi, wow I just have to kick this off by telling you that the book is now at two weeks on the NYT bestseller list. Thank you. That is really incredible. But what’s way more incredible is what it means: that there’s this incredible community of people who don’t feel like cooking, but do feel like supporting me and my work. THANK YOU. And because of all of your support — it has kind of taken on a life of its own?! I’m getting a lot of “just got your book and started following you” DMs. If you’re new, hi!

If you haven’t gotten your book yet (or need one for teacher’s presents, holiday gifts, upcoming birthdays…), you can get signed copies here from Barnes & Noble and several independent stores, and Amazon currently has it on sale for 36% off — so it’s only $22.46!

I talked on Instagram this week about how all of this self promotion is kind of weighing on me and feeling braggy and weird. So many of you messaged me the kindest encouragement and told me it’s nice to see a woman recognizing her achievements and feeling proud, since we were all raised in a society where we were taught not to “brag”. So I thought before we get to the recipe, we could have a collective bragging session?! Brag away!! Tell me something awesome about YOU! Did you recently get a promotion? Did you graduate with honors? Were you a great friend this week? Did you sign up to be your kid’s room parent? Let's brag!!!!!!

For fun, I'll randomly select three braggers and gift you a year subscription to What To Cook!! If you already subscribe, it’ll add another year at the end of your subscription.

Now let’s talk about this salad!!

At one of the Q&As during my book tour, someone asked me if there was a recipe I wanted to write for the book that I just couldn’t figure out, or never made it into the book for any reason.

I told them that there were a LOT (LOT! LOT!) of recipe concepts that I simply could not figure out how to What To Cook-ify. Meaning: they required too many dishes, or too much time, or I simply could not say in full honestly that I’d personally make them when I didn’t feel like cooking.

I told them about one recipe in particular, a grilled chicken and pita chopped salad that was so, so delicious, but required so much chopping that I just couldn’t include it in this book. Afterwards, so many people came up to me and were like “ok, it didn’t work for the book, but you NEED to send it on the newsletter!!!”

So here we are! There is a decent amount of chopping here, but with a sharp knife and a good attitude, you can still have this entire dinner ready to serve under 45 minutes! If you really don’t feel like cooking this week, might I recommend one of the recipes from the 15 minute chapter of the book, or the chilled tomato soup from last week? It’s absolutely delicious and didn’t get nearly enough attention because it was published during book mania!

We’ll start by seasoning some chicken and pre-heating the grill, then move on to dicing up cucumbers, tomatoes, red onion, and avocado. Grill the chicken and some pita (or just buy pita chips), then toss it all together with a lemon vinaigrette plus lots of mint and feta. This meal is inspired by fattoush, a Middle Eastern salad with cucumbers, red onion, tomatoes and fried pita, but my version adds chicken and avocado on and swaps in a bright lemony vinaigrette.

So here ya go: here’s your new hyper-fixation meal!!! I’ve eaten this salad for 5 straight meals (including breakfast, duh!) and I need more!!

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Serves: 4 (double or 1.5x the veggies if people are really hungry!

Cook time: 30 minutes

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