Chicken Shawarma in October 2020
I’m still working from home.
Every morning I wheel a very nice desk chair that’s stored in the corner of the playroom to the dining room table and set up shop for the day. My office is the corner of the kitchen. We do have a designated office space downstairs, but without windows I don’t enjoy sitting down there for hours at a time.
At some point in the morning I’ll throw a load of laundry in. I find without rushing I usually make and eat lunch within 15-20 minutes. In the afternoon I’ll flip the laundry. If dinner has a long cook time, I’ll start it at 4:30 so dinner, the laundry and my work day all wrap up at the same time.
This is why I’m enjoying working from home.
I pick up the boys at 5:05, and we’re home enjoying the rest of our night together.
Last night was a start-dinner-at-4:30 kind of day. I made chicken shawarma from a British cooking show on Netflix where the host shoved spiced chicken into a bread loaf and baked it. It came out looking good on TV, and when I made it, it came out tasting good too.
We ate fast and made it to the park up the street for a post-dinner hike in the woods. It was perfectly crisp outside, the sun turned everything golden.
We ran, hopped over tree roots, stopped to watch a fuzzy white caterpillar crawl across the forest floor. We watched our shadows stand 12ft tall. And walked up to people walking our way and said “HELLO!” in our friendliest voices.
We got home just in time for a bath and bed. With everyone tucked in I couldn’t help but realize how cozy I felt. Maybe it was from the warm spiced chicken, the play in the low and lingering sun, or from administering a particularly fun bubble bath.
Or maybe all those things combined, on a Monday night--a jam packed night which hardly felt jam packed at all
We got home just in time to give the kids a bath and to put them to bed, and our house couldn’t have felt any cozier. Maybe it was the warm spiced chicken, play in the low and lingering sun, the bubble bath or maybe all those things combined--on a Monday night--which a commute would never have allowed time for.
Bread Loaf Chicken Shawarma
Modified from Nadiya’s Time to Eat
Ingredients
1.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts--cut into thin fillets
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon cayenne
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Combine all spices together, with cornstarch, in a bowl. Set aside.
3. Ensure your chicken breasts are all cut into thin fillets. If the pieces are still big, cut them horizontally so they’re more like triangles/squares.
4. Coat chicken in vegetable oil.
5. Rub spice mixture onto all sides of chicken.
6. Layer the chicken in a bread loaf pan, pushing it down as you go.
7. Bake for 40 minutes
Notes
Once it’s out of the oven I let it cool for a bit, then take the pieces out and slice them thin. The original recipe calls for chicken thighs, and she tips the pan over and the chicken remains as a loaf to slice. I did not find this to be the case with chicken breasts.
I made a herbed yogurt sauce, shredded Brussels sprouts and toasted naan bread to go with this.
Every morning I wheel a very nice desk chair that’s stored in the corner of the playroom to the dining room table and set up shop for the day. My office is the corner of the kitchen. We do have a designated office space downstairs, but without windows I don’t enjoy sitting down there for hours at a time.
At some point in the morning I’ll throw a load of laundry in. I find without rushing I usually make and eat lunch within 15-20 minutes. In the afternoon I’ll flip the laundry. If dinner has a long cook time, I’ll start it at 4:30 so dinner, the laundry and my work day all wrap up at the same time.
This is why I’m enjoying working from home.
I pick up the boys at 5:05, and we’re home enjoying the rest of our night together.
Last night was a start-dinner-at-4:30 kind of day. I made chicken shawarma from a British cooking show on Netflix where the host shoved spiced chicken into a bread loaf and baked it. It came out looking good on TV, and when I made it, it came out tasting good too.
We ate fast and made it to the park up the street for a post-dinner hike in the woods. It was perfectly crisp outside, the sun turned everything golden.
We ran, hopped over tree roots, stopped to watch a fuzzy white caterpillar crawl across the forest floor. We watched our shadows stand 12ft tall. And walked up to people walking our way and said “HELLO!” in our friendliest voices.
We got home just in time for a bath and bed. With everyone tucked in I couldn’t help but realize how cozy I felt. Maybe it was from the warm spiced chicken, the play in the low and lingering sun, or from administering a particularly fun bubble bath.
Or maybe all those things combined, on a Monday night--a jam packed night which hardly felt jam packed at all
We got home just in time to give the kids a bath and to put them to bed, and our house couldn’t have felt any cozier. Maybe it was the warm spiced chicken, play in the low and lingering sun, the bubble bath or maybe all those things combined--on a Monday night--which a commute would never have allowed time for.
Bread Loaf Chicken Shawarma
Modified from Nadiya’s Time to Eat
Ingredients
1.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts--cut into thin fillets
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon cayenne
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Combine all spices together, with cornstarch, in a bowl. Set aside.
3. Ensure your chicken breasts are all cut into thin fillets. If the pieces are still big, cut them horizontally so they’re more like triangles/squares.
4. Coat chicken in vegetable oil.
5. Rub spice mixture onto all sides of chicken.
6. Layer the chicken in a bread loaf pan, pushing it down as you go.
7. Bake for 40 minutes
Notes
Once it’s out of the oven I let it cool for a bit, then take the pieces out and slice them thin. The original recipe calls for chicken thighs, and she tips the pan over and the chicken remains as a loaf to slice. I did not find this to be the case with chicken breasts.
I made a herbed yogurt sauce, shredded Brussels sprouts and toasted naan bread to go with this.