Chicken Piccata

Oh.  My.  Gosh.  To create a list of my favorite chicken recipes, I would have to add this to my top 5 easily!  For my parents' anniversary this year, I made them appetizers and dinner as their gift so they could have a restaurant worthy meal without having to leave home.  If you want to see the appetizer, you can go here.
Working the timing of this dinner was difficult, but timing multiple things is something I haven't quite grown into doing yet.  As a preferred baker, there's plenty of time to do multiple steps thanks to things needing to sit, rest, cool, you name it.  When you're cooking and it all needs to be hot at the table together, it's rather frustrating for me.  Let's just say I look like the road runner going around the kitchen.  I hope you don't share in that mad rush to do it all! :)  I've attached a (bad, but still) photo of what the finished product looked like.  When I took it, I was rushing so they could eat so no critiques.  But without further ado, here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 4 whole Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
• *Check the size, you want them small to cook faster.  I had to split mine so you may only need two big ones.  You could pound them smaller too, but I don't like pounding food personally.
• salt and pepper to taste
• ¼ cup all purpose flour
• 2 Tablespoons Butter
• 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 whole Lemons
• ¾ Cup Heavy Cream
• ¼ cup capers
• Chopped parsley, for garnish
• 1 pound Angel Hair Pasta

Directions:

1. Heat 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Salt and pepper each side of the chicken breasts and dredge in the flour. Put the chicken breasts in the skillet. Cook for about 3 minutes on each side, or until it is cooked throughout and no longer pink. Remove from the skillet and set aside on a plate.
2. Turn the heat to medium low. Add broth, juice from both lemons, heavy cream, and capers. Bring the sauce to a boil and return to medium low heat. Test the sauce and season with salt and pepper as needed. Allow the sauce to cook and bubble for about 3 minutes.
3. Serve the chicken over cooked pasta and spoon the sauce over both. Sprinkle with fresh chopped parsley.

According to the original recipe creator, which the original can be found here, the point of this recipe is (to some extent) to be a quick recipe.  If you can get the timing down, it can be a 30 minute meal.  If I'm lucky, one day I can cook this in that amount of time. :)  Side note for anyone else who didn't know what this was, piccata means a chicken that's sliced, coated, sauteed, and served with a sauce.  

As always, if you have questions, comments, or recipe adaptions, leave a comment below.  Let me know how you feel about this dish.  Happy eating!

An Appetizer of Garlic Toast Bites

This year, my parents celebrated another double digits anniversary.  It's not uncommon for me to get them a gift or celebrate their anniversary with them.  This year though, I decided to give them an elegant restaurant date (minus the $50 bill).  I searched Pinterest high and low (since Pinterest is my go-to for all things crafting, cooking, and everything else).  I finally found a glorious appetizer and dinner recipe that I could see in a nice restaurant.  I'll post a link to the dinner recipe at the bottom if you're interested in seeing the full menu.  But let's not jump the gun, we all know the first course is an appetizer so let's start there.
I've added a picture of the appetizer (once about half of it was eaten) but I do want you to keep in mind... this was my first attempt at them and some of them don't have the cheese as well melted as some of the others.  But I got through it and it was loved by all!  Now without further ado, here's the recipe to make these easy, delicious appetizers.

Ingredients:

• 1 baguette
• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 8 ounces of fresh mozzarella, sliced
• 6 slices of prosciutto, thinly sliced
• sea salt & cracked pepper
• fresh basil, chopped

Directions: 

1. Prepare the bread by slicing it into thin slices.  Brush the bread with olive oil on one side.  
2. You can do it under the broiler in your oven, or on the grill.  If broiling, place them on a sheet oiled side up and place them under the broiler for 1-2 minutes.  Be careful not to burn!  If grilling, brush the other side of the bread with oil.  Grill the bread for 1-2 minutes.  Make sure to grill the bread just before serving.
3. When you remove them from the grill or oven, let them cool slightly, then rub the raw clove of garlic on each piece.
4. Top each piece of bread with small, thin slices of prosciutto.  Then, top each with a slice of fresh mozzarella.  
5. Grill or broil the toasts for 2 minutes, or just until the mozzarella begins to melt.  Remove from the grill or broiler and top with salt, pepper and fresh basil.

This is one of the simplest recipes I've done to date.  These aren't only a great app, but they're a good snack for movie night, party time, or going to a family dinner.  The link for the dinner recipe is here.  As always, the original recipe is here.  This is one of the funnest, most chaotic cooking attempts I've done, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat!  If you have questions, comments, or variations of your own, leave them below.  Happy eating!

Wo-manwich

In our house, Manwich isn't a word that gets used very often.  With mom not being a big fan of the Sloppy Joe's from a can, it's an extremely rare treat to eat them... until now.  I found a homemade Sloppy Joe's recipe that not only was loved by the Sloppy eaters of the house, but also mom.  Now, I will state ahead of time.  I've made the sauce for this recipe two completely different ways.  The first time was with the wrong kind of tomato sauce and a misreading of the garlic powder; the second time was the way it was supposed to be made.  Now, we personally prefer a thicker sauce, which is how the directions/ingredients list will show it, but this can be made to be a bit runnier if you prefer yours to be really sloppy.  But enough talk, let's get down to business.

Ingredients:

• 2 cloves garlic, minced 
• 1 pound ground beef (or turkey if you prefer)
• 8 ounces tomato paste
• 8 ounces water 
• *This can be gotten using the tomato paste can and your preferred water choice.
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon prepared mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• Hamburger buns

Directions:

1. Set a large pot over medium-low heat. Add a few drops of extra-virgin olive oil, and saute the garlic for a minute or two until just fragrant and very light golden brown. Add ground beef, increase heat to medium/medium high, and cook until no longer pink, breaking apart and stirring as meat cooks.
2. While meat is browning, make sauce. In a medium bowl, stir together tomato paste and water until smooth.  Then, add ketchup, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, garlic powder, onion powder, and freshly ground black pepper to taste, then stir until well combined. Pour over browned meat, stir, and simmer for a few minutes until warm.
3. Serve on hamburger buns or rolls.

I love this dish!  And the wonderful thing about a homemade sauce is that if you make it too onion-y or too garlic-y, you can increase another flavor like ketchup or brown sugar to balance it out until you like how it tastes.  You can use an 8 ounce can of tomato sauce if you want, just cross off the water from your ingredients list.  For us, though, as I said earlier, it's just too runny for us and we don't care for sloppy buns if we don't have to.  I love this dish on its own or accompanied by some mac and cheese and/or mashed potatoes.  

As always, I share the original recipe here as this isn't originally my recipe.  This is just my adaption on it.  As English class always teaches, no plagiarism!  If you have questions about the recipe or you want to share your adaptions to my recipe or the original recipe, leave a comment.  Happy eating!

Ooey Gooey Cookie Cake

If you're like my dad and I, then you love cookies!  I was cruising around Facebook the other day and I saw a video link for this wonderful one-pan cookie cake and that's something I have wanted, but yet to attempt to make.  The video made it seem so simple that I decided to get up yesterday and make it!  It's so ooey and gooey, it's heaven in a pan if you ask me!  Here's my version of the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 5 tbsp melted unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
•  *If you want to, you can use 1/3 cup of dark brown sugar instead, I just prefer light brown.
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1¼ cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips 
• *If you want it really chocolaty like me, then feel free to use 3/4 cup, but the general consensus in my house was that it was too chocolaty.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. In a 9" pan, pour in the melted butter, brown sugar, and white sugar.  Combine the three using a spatula or a wooden spoon. 
3. Add in the egg first, then the vanilla extract carefully, and then mix.  This should reduce the amount of splashing and spilling you have.
4. Next, pour in all of the dry ingredients and mix until incorporated.  I found it easier to do this part by hand, but you will get messy.  
5. Fold in the chocolate chips and then spread the dough out evenly.  The dough will be sticky so I suggest using a piece of parchment paper to smooth it out.  Make sure dough is pushed out to the edges. 
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges are lightly golden brown.
7. Top with your favorite cookie accompaniment, whether it's ice cream or frosting, or leaving it bare.  Pour a glass of milk and enjoy!

I thoroughly enjoyed making and eating this!  It's a great, need dessert quick recipe that's bound to be loved by many!  As always, pictures of it will come later :)  Here's the original recipe here, but the video that I watched isn't up here.  Always feel free to check out the original.  Tweak either recipe until you find the mixture that best fits you.  Leave a comment to the changes you made or any questions you have about the recipe :)

In reference to the wooden spoon, I highly suggest this if you enjoy baking.  Wooden spoons will, over time, soak in the flavors it's exposed to and will incorporate some of those flavors into what you're mixing.  This being said, make sure you have a wooden spoon that's devoted to your sweets and pastries.  You don't want to have a hint of tomato sauce in your brownies. :)