The following recipe is the result of an assortment of odds n’ ends in the refrigerator – too many missing components of our regular meals, but too much food all around to really warrant grocery shopping. And also a bumper crop of cucumbers.

Did I mention that the little garden patch at No. 208 has produced pounds and pounds of cucumbers? For serious – I think I put in something like fifteen plants, and since the beginning of July, we’ve always had a cucumber or three on the counter. I think I mentioned before that I pickled some the first week in August, but when I opened the jars a few weeks later, they were terrible.* So, um, we’ve just been eating them. (-urp-)

Ok, so we had chicken defrosted, we had cucumbers. Let’s call it dinner. Here’s what happened:

Feta Chicken – serves 3-4

2 large or 3 medium chicken breasts
1 smallish bunch of fresh dill, torn up
1 lemon, halved
kosher salt
garlic powder
black pepper
olive oil
feta cheese crumbles
Cucumbers – as many as you would like.**

1. Clean the chicken breasts: trim excess fat and any icky bits. Cut the meat into 3-4″ pieces (like, you could cut a chicken breast side-wise into four pieces), and place on a cutting board.
2. Put your favorite pan over medium heat with a little oil, a couple tablespoons, in it. While you wait for it to get hot (so water spritzed on the pan sizzles), squeeze a lemon half over your chicken, then sprinkle on salt, garlic powder, and black pepper. When the pan is ready, put the chicken into it, seasoned side down.
3. Give the chicken about a minute, and then start dressing the side that’s up: juice the other half of the lemon, sprinkle with salt, garlic powder, and black pepper, then put some of the dill on each chicken chunk.
4.  When the chicken chunks have browned, flip them over, and brown the other side. When both sides are browned, take them off the heat and allow to rest for five minutes before serving.  While it rests, cut the cucumbers into rounds and arrange on your plates.
5. Plate your chicken with your delicious delicious cucumbers, and sprinkle some feta crumbles, to your taste, over both the chicken and the cucumbers. If you’re feeling like you’d like a little more sauce, you can add tzatziki*** or some of that fancy Trader Joe’s feta dressing.

I served this up with brown rice the other night and it was pretty good. But I’m betting it could have been even better with a little bit of orzo. Darling Will was skeptical at first, especially since I was all like, Um, this might be great, it might not be so great; we’ll have to see. But there were no leftovers to be had after everything was said and done \o/

***

*I have no idea how this happened. The pickles last year were osm. Clearly, these were not last year’s pickles.
**We like them very much, here at No. 208. We each got a cucumber of our own with dinner the other night.
***Ed Hyder’s makes my very favoritest tzatziki in the world. I could eat that stuff with a spoon, right out of the container. Sometimes when there’s just a little bit left (because I’ve been spreading in on rice cakes or something), I will eat it with my fingers. I’m just sayin’, it’s super good.