Anne's Cookbook: Curry Chicken Summer Salad Wraps

ANNE'S COOKBOOK is a new feature here at My Head is Full of Books. Once a week, or thereabouts, Anne will open up her own cookbook and share favorite family recipes with you. Feel free to try them, tweak them to fit your needs, PIN them, and share them.

Curry Chicken Summer Salad Wraps

This is a favorite family meal during the summer months when no one wants to heat up the house by using the stove or oven. Every person can personalize their wrap to fill their own tastes, too.

Ingredients:

• 2-3 chicken breasts
• Marinade
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 Tbsp. mild vinegar, I used white champagne vinegar, but red wine vinegar would be good, too
• 1 tsp. seasoning mix, I used 21 Seasoning Salute from Trader Joe's
• 1/2 tsp. curry powder
• Sauce
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt, I used plain Greek yogurt for a thicker sauce
• 1-2 tsp. curry powder, depending on how spicy you like it.
• Package of burrito-sized tortillas
• Fixings
• Green or red seedless grapes, small bunch
• Red or Green tart apple
• Raisins, 1/4 cup
• Blanched, slivered almonds, 1/4 cup
• Celery, 1-2 spears
• Shredded romaine lettuce

Directions:

Marinate chicken breasts in the marinade for around 30 minutes. While chicken is marinating, get BBQ up to temperature. When the grill is ready, grill chicken as per your particular BBQ dictates for boneless chicken breast. (10-20 minutes). When grilling is complete, set chicken aside to rest for five minutes before slicing into small, bite-sized pieces.

While the chicken is grilling, prepare your sauce and fixings. I use small bowls for each ingredients instead of mixing everything together because my family members all have different likes and dislikes. Wash and cut grapes in half. Clean celery and then chop into small pieces. Wash and core apple, cut into bite-sized pieces. Shred or tear lettuce into small pieces. Place raisins and almonds in bowls. For the sauce, simply mix curry into the yogurt. We like it spicy at my house so I use at least 2 tsp. of curry. Some curry is sweeter than others, you may want to add a teaspoon of sugar if you think yours isn't sweet enough.

When chicken is done resting and is cut up, heat tortillas for 10-15 seconds in your microwave. Just long enough to take the chill off them. If you don't have a microwave, you can quickly heat them up using a hot pan and some sort of tongs for turning them over. A few seconds per side should do fine.

Fill your tortilla with the ingredients you like. I start by smearing the whole thing with the yogurt sauce, then I add the pieces of chicken followed by my favorite fillings (we call them do-dads.) Wrap like a burrito which means you close off the bottom and then bring the sides around, leaving only the top open. Enjoy. Go back for seconds!

Serves 4.

Note for variations: The fixings of our summer salad lean toward the sweet side of things. You can certainly add other crunchy vegetables to make it a bit more savory. Try green or red peppers, jicama, water chestnuts, shredded carrots. Don't use ingredients you don't like. For example, if you are a raisin-hater, skip them altogether.  If everyone in your family loves the same do-dads, you can mix the fixings up together with the sauce ahead of time (minus the lettuce.) You can also use flat bread or pita bread instead of tortillas. We have tried them all and have decided we like tortillas best. In fact, if you prefer, you can eat this as a salad and skip the tortillas altogether. Just mix all the fixings together and serve on a bed of lettuce