Chicken fajitas

Sometimes I’ll hit a dry spell with a cookbook and think it’s time to part company with it, but then a recipe will help redeem the book and it stays on the shelf. This recipe, while not a major wower, falls into the category of perfectly acceptable fast food that has a side benefit of being labeled as diet food without tasting like it. So the cookbook lives another day.

Chicken fajitas

Adapted from “New Dieter’s Cookbook” from Better Homes &Gardens

Ingredients:

8 six-inch flour tortillas

1 small onion, sliced into rings

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 red pepper, chopped

1 tablespoon cooking oil

9 ounces chicken cutlets, cut into bite-size pieces

1/3 cup purchased salsa

2 cups shredded cabbage

¼ cup low-fat plain yogurt

1 green onion, sliced, for garnish

Method:

Put tortillas in a low-heat oven while you prepare the filling so they’ll roll more readily.

Stir-fry sliced onion for 2 minutes in part of the cooking oil. Add red pepper and garlic and stir-fry until the veggies start to soften. Remove from skillet and set aside. Add remaining oil to skillet and stir-fry the chicken until cooked. Return veggies to skillet and add salsa.

Serve chicken mixture on tortillas. Top with cabbage, a dollop of yogurt and some sliced green onions.

Serves 4.

Because I was making this as a take-to-work supper, I had to assemble the fajitas in advance and warm them up, which did impinge on their structural integrity. So after a few days of that I opted to put the chicken mixture over brown rice, which was perfectly viable alternative. Probably not quite as diety, but probably not horribly unhealthy either.

Other new recipe also-rans this week:  Penne with broccoli, olives and pistachios from last Thursday's Taste section. I tried this because I had leftover anchovies on hand and I like broccoli and pistachios, so it seemed like it stood a fighting chance. In some recipes the ingredients come together and transcend their individual parts, in others they never quite meld. This falls into the latter category, and also into the group of recipes labeled as worth trying, but not repeating. Save yourself the effort.