Grilled yogurt chicken with cucumber salad

This was the frustrating day from hell. I have been dealing with HP for about 2 weeks now over my printer. Unfortunately as I like to do multiple tasks at the same time, I did not notice that the pop-up said set up not update and clicked on it. So this pop up keeps coming up and interfering with everything I do. So after weeks of working with the online help, I got very mad and called the corporate headquarters in CA. I asked if they had customer service. For me, I was very calm and collected as I went through multiple layers of people in the office. Finally I am connected to Katy who not only gives me a year of free online service but connects me to someone in Canada who speaks English and she proceeds to help. We spend 1 ½ hours on line and she seems to get the pop up turned off. Next day I turn on the computer and yes the pop up from hell is back. I decide that I will wait for Jim to have time to talk to them as I am on the verge of throwing the printer out the window. Today Katy calls and I tell her my thing and she says, why don’t you uninstall and reinstall, sounded good to me. Now mind you I have a perfectly working printer my only problem is a popup, a very persistent popup. Immediately following her call we had two realtors call wanting to show the house and Jim and I had errands to run. We did our thing and they did there’s. I came home got out the instructions and uninstalled my perfectly working printer. Next it is time to reinstall. I tried 4 times, nothing. So finally I call the year of free of help that HP has given me. I was on the phone for 2 ½ hours. When we finished everything seemed to be working perfectly. Needed to make dinner, as it was 6:00PM and I had not done a thing. Could not make what I was planning as we would have eaten at midnight. So I went to plan B which was to be tomorrow. So, I restart the computer to find out that my wireless has been disconnected, my AOL is down, and my accesses to icons on the face are gone, and the pop up is still there. It is now 9:30 PM and I have now repaired the damage that started with a call to HP help at 4:00 PM.


Luckily this dinner was fast and good. It is in the April Sunset Magazine. The chicken breasts were in the freezer, but my friend Jane taught me this fast thaw method that is much better than the microwave. I took out 3 breasts and sealed them in a plastic bag. I used the small side of the sink. Put them in the sink and fill with water. The water sucks the frozen out of the meat and it is all evenly thawed in minutes. So from here, follow the recipe. There are parts that I just ignored.
Serves 4, Time 30 minutes
4 boned, skinned chicken breast halves
1 ¼ C plain whole-mild yogurt (I used Greek yogurt)
1¼ t ground cumin
1t fresh lemon juice
3/4t kosher salt
1/2t chili flakes
¼ t ground turmeric
1T vegetable oil
1 English cucumber, cut into ¼” dice
2T minced shallot
1/4C chopped fresh mint leaves
Freshly ground black pepper
My chicken breasts were frozen Purdue from Costco so the tender was already removed. They are thin so I did not need to pound to ¼” thick. I just needed to thaw them.
Mix the yogurt, cumin, lemon juice, salt, chili flakes and turmeric in a bowl.
Next as I am waiting for the chicken to thaw, I cut up the cucumber, mint, and shallot and mixed in a bowl. I added 1/2C of the yogurt mixture to the bowl and combined. The chicken was thawed and I added the remaining yogurt mixture to the bag and squished around to coat thoroughly to coat. They want you to marinate for 10 minutes. Jim heated the grille and cooked them for about 4 minutes. The meal was very good.
Jim served a 2005 Viansa Piccolo which is made with Sonoma Count Sangiovese grapes. It was excellent.