“Killer” is the title of honor that I bestow before any recipe in my repertoire containing these three essential components:

1. It’s quick and easy to make.
2. It’s delicious.
3. It causes adoration from everyone who eats it.

Yes, killer does equal awesome, but it’s also an appropriate name if you are an apprehensive cook and are prone poisoning your guests. Use either meaning, but at least you can say, “well, they knew what they were getting into”.

For you broccoli haters, this recipe eliminates the mushy texture many dislike. By roasting the stalks at a high heat you get a firmer texture and tasty flavor. It’s a good, healthier “gateway” broccoli too, with the olive oil, cheese and garlic flavors. There’s rich flavor without being coated in cream sauce. It goes well with fish and steak, or try it alongside any of the 5 Recipes for Rotisserie Chicken.

You can eyeball the measurements, but amounts are provided below. Or, create it mostly to taste, depending on what you have on hand or like. It’s best with the pine nuts, basil and chili included, there’s a little more complexity of flavor, but it’s good without it too.

For the roasting:
1 bag of Mann’s broccoli or 1 big head of broccoli trimmed from the stalk in to good size florets
Olive oil
2-3 garlic cloves (to taste)
Salt and pepper

For the tossing:
Olive oil
1/3-1/2 cup or shredded Parmesan or Romano cheese
Half a lemon and zest or lemon juice
Option: 3 Tbs pine nuts
Option: 2 Tbs fresh basil
Option: chili flakes (to taste)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425.
2. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and add broccoli.
3. Toss together the broccoli and 2 or 3 peeled and sliced garlic cloves with approx 2-3 Tbs olive oil, salt and pepper on the cookie sheet. (Toss the chili flakes at this step if you want a little kick/heat).
4. Roast in the oven 20 mins (check at 15 mins if your oven runs hot), until crisp-tender and the tips of some of the florets are browned.
5. Remove from oven and zest 1/2 of the lemon peel over the broccoli, squeeze in the juice of half the lemon (I’ve used a few squirts of one of those squeeze-y lemon juices in a pinch) and toss with 1.5 Tbs more of olive oil, 3 Tbs of pine nuts, 2 Tbs of chopped basil and the 1/3 cup of shredded Parmesan or Romano cheese.
6. Serve warm.

Serves 4

We all know the expression, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” Similarly, there are many uses for a pre-cooked rotisserie kitchen from the grocery store.

For those of you who aren’t completely grossed-out by my cat metaphor, continue reading for the 5 summer-friendly recipes using a $6 BBQ-cooked rotisserie chicken that are healthy, delicious and won’t overheat your kitchen!

CHICKEN CORDON BLEU SANDWICH
Granted, this one requires a little cooking, but if you use your toaster oven, you should be able to keep the temperature from rising too much in the kitchen.

Ingredients
1 sourdough roll
2 slices of honeybaked ham
2 slices of Swiss cheese
1 thick slice from rotisserie chicken breast
1 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp mayonnaise
Handful of spinach leaves
2 tomato slices

Directions
Place the bread slices with one a slice of cheese on each side in the toaster oven. Wrap the slice of chicken in both slices of honeybaked ham and lay it on top of the bottom piece of bread and then toast it all for about 5 minutes.

While it’s toasting, mix the mayonnaise and Dijon mustard. After it’s toasted, liberally spread it onto the chicken, ham and top bread slice. Place the spinach leaves on top of the chicken and the tomato slices on top of that.

You can have a little side salad by chopping up the remaining parts of the tomato and adding them to some spinach.

CHICKEN SPINACH SALAD
This can be as easy or simple as you’d like.

Ingredients
6 chicken strips (about 1/4 inch thick)
1 1/2 cups of spinach
1 tsp of parmesan cheese
4 strawberries sliced thinly
1 Tbsp of poppyseed dressing

If you’re running low, you can always just do the chicken, spinach and dressing and ta-da! You’ve got a healthy salad.

CHICKEN ENCHILADAS
OK, so you do have to cook this one too. But once again, it’s toaster over friendly. Also, you can have it as cold leftovers.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups of shredded chicken
3 -5 Medium-sized soft taco tortillas
1 small can of black olives
1 red pepper
1 avocado
1 can of black beans
4 roma tomatoes
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 cup of frozen spinach
1 1/4 cup of salsa
Sprinkle of sugar
1 can of enchilada sauce

You can either toss everything into a crock pot (except the avocado and tortillas) and just cook it on low for about 2-4 hours or cook it up on a griddle for about 5-7 minutes with a little bit of olive oil.

However you want to cook the inside stuff, roll them up until your baking pan is full. Then pour some enchilada sauce over the top and cook for 9 minutes in the toaster oven (or regular oven) at 425 degrees.

Slice up the avocado and garnish. If you’re feeling fancy, you can add a handful of fresh spinach and some rice and beans on the side, adding salsa to taste.

COLD CHICKEN SALAD
I have saved the best for last here. The beauty of this last recipe is that you can use whatever’s left from the last of the rotisserie chicken. Just shred the remaining meat and toss it into the bowl. From there, you can add:

Ingredients
Juice from 1/2 a lime
1 tsp of mayonnaise
A pinch of salt, pepper and sugar each
1 sliced celery stalk
1 sliced carrot
1 tsp of parmesan cheese

Voila! You’ve got yourself a nice, light chicken salad that you can either have in a sandwich, on top of a salad or just by itself.

And all of this, from just one lil’ ol’ chicken.