Gwyneth Paltrow is my new best friend, and a recipe for the best herbed grilled chicken ever, plus a killer salad dressing

The other day, I borrowed a book from the Burlington library, called "It's all good" by Gwyneth Paltrow, the famous actress.  It's a cook book with the subtitle "Delicious, easy recipes that will make you look good and feel great."

I stumbled upon in on my new quest for paleo, gluten free, healthy cooking.

Oh my god.

That woman is my new best friend, and I bet if she took some time out of her busy, dazzling schedule and hung out with me, she would think we are soul sisters.

I'm just saying.

Because she writes about her health journey and her own struggle to heal herself with food, and because judging from the gorgeous pictures in her cookbook, all these meals could have been produced on our homestead, she would probably think we Sahlin's are THE REAL DEAL.  Which we are, but nobody is knocking on our door offering us book deals.

Anyway.

I love her cookbook.  I. Read. Every. Single. Page. Of. Her. Book.  Almost 300 pages, in one sitting, drooling over the recipes, and astonished how aligned I am with her food philosophy.  Soul sisters, I'm telling you.

I promptly tried one of her grilled chicken recipes and one of her salad dressings, and I am even more sold than just looking at the pictures: it is the best chicken I ever had, and the salad dressing is to die for, too.

So let me tell you: Buy her book (it's cheap on Amazon), or get it from the library, and do make some recipes from it.  Or every single recipe, which I will do over the course of the next months.

Let me share with you the recipe I just made, because it's grilled, and it's summer and you probably have all the herbs growing in your garden now.  It's so worth it.

• 1 teaspoon very finely chopped fresh sage
• 1 teaspoon very finely chopped fresh thyme (I only had dried on hand, so I used that)
• 1 teaspoon very finely chopped fresh rosemary
• 1 Tablespoon very finely chopped fresh Italian parsley
• 1 Tablespoon very finely chopped fresh basil
• 1 garlic clove, finely minced

(Gwyneth writes "very, very finely chopped", but I think you shouldn't stress out about the chopping too much.  I chopped the herbs, but I got lazy and left some bigger chunks.  Big deal.  Let the herb-chopping police come to my house).

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• zest of 1/2 lemon (I only had limes in the fridge, which worked marvelously)
• 2 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (see above - limes work fine)
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 4 boneless chicken breasts pounded to barely 1/4 inch thick

Did you get that?  You beat the poor chicken breasts with a mallet, which is weird, but kind of fun.  I didn't have a mallet in the kitchen, so I asked Steve if he had any tools lying around in his shop.  He did and procured a mallet, which he covered with plastic wrap, and I pounded away.  You want the meat thin so it will grill fast.

1. Combine the herbs, garlic, olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice and salt in a large bowl.
2. Add the smooshed chicken breasts to the bowl and rub the herb stuff over each one, making sure you get both sides.  
3. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the chicken pieces marinate for at least 1/2 hour, or possibly overnight.
4. Heat a grill or grill pan over medium heat and grill the chicken until just cooked through, about 2 minutes on each side.

Now, I have to admit that I, the kitchen queen and hobby chef, don't own a grill.  The way we grill our meat and veggies is to do it over an open fire, so we did that, and the chicken turned out insanely awesome.  It took more than 2 minutes on each side, but who's counting?

Since I made six chicken breasts (we are a big family, after all), we had some leftovers, which we will take hiking with us tomorrow.  What better snack and protein-packed energy food than herbed chicken on the trail?

Now for the salad dressing.  

She calls her recipe "Mexican Green Goddess Dressing", and I modified it, because I'm a wimp when it comes to spicy food.  My digestion hates it, and my tastebuds do, too, so I left out the jalapeno.  

Also, I didn't have scallions, so I used a small chunk of onion from my garden.  Here goes:

• 2/3 cup sheep's or goat's milk yogurt or Vegenaise (I used my very own home-made goat milk yogurt.  Now, do you think Gwyneth knows real people who milk real goats and make their own goat yogurt?  I think she should meet me, don't you?)
• 1/4 cup cilantro
• 2 scallions, white and light green parts only, roughly chopped (or a chunk of onion)
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (Yeah for limes, since I never have lemons on hand!)
• 1/2 green jalapeno, roughly chopped (No, thank you. Not for me)
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 Tablespoon raw honey

Combine all ingredients in a blender until smooth.

You can store this in a jar in the fridge for a week, but I used the whole thing on one salad.  Our salads are big.