Pan-Seared Chicken Breasts with Creamy Lemon Sauce

Okay! I just realized how much I’ve missed my kitchen. I haven’t been in it for so long, it’s like I was new to whole coking thing again. Oh well, I’m back now! And hopefully for good because I have just about 8 days to get this whole cookbook thing done. Now before I get into the meal about tonight, I’m going to update you on when I was finish my cookbook, and how it’s going to get done. First of all, I’m not going to make EVERY SINGLE dish left. Some of the stuff isn’t really something my family would eat. With our picky taste buds! So I’m just going to do a few side dishes, a few fish recipes, and other things… but I think I’ll be able to get all the recipes I DO need to do, DONE. Actually, I have until Monday to get all of them done! Hee hee!!! Wow! But I’m also kind of edging into doing more Pampered Chef recipes. They are great. Actually, the one I made tonight is Pampered Chef! Anyway, So I’m going to try to do these next couple recipes, and get the job done! And done the RIGHT way. I’m going to finish, I’m not just gonna say “Oh, well we’re close enough, I’m done.” NO! I’m FINISHING!!!! I want too! It’s gonna be a LONG week! But fun! So that’s mainly what’s going on! I can’t believe it’s been a year! I’ve had fun! And now, It’s time for meal!

What I started with was getting the chicken seasoned up. I was supposed to use a Greek Rub from Pampered Chef, but I didn’t have that, so I used Bouquet Garni. It’s a plain, original seasoning, that’s good on anything. So I rubbed that on the chicken, along with putting a slice of lemon under the skin! That gave it a REALLY good lemon flavor. When I got to the bottom part of my chicken breast (when i was eating it) and the bottom had lemon flavor! It was AWESOME!!!! Anyway, kinda off track here! Then I cooked it in our Magic Pot. What that is, is like a roasting pan, that’s microwavable, and you can cook ANYTHING in it. And when I say anything, I mean  anything. Pasta, poultry, meat, sauces, ANYTHING! So I cooked this chicken in that, and then I had to start on the Orzo.

What I did was that, was cook it normally, then, when I strained it, I strained it onto some spinach. Then I put everything back in the pot, and left it there while I finished the chicken. What I had to do with this chicken, was fry it in the pan for a few minutes, just to get it browned up. Then the chicken was done. Then I made a sauce. It had lemon zest, lemon juice, cream of chicken soup, and some of the juices that came off of the chicken. Then half of that went in the Orzo, then the rest went on top of the chicken to plate it. And then it was pretty much done! And yet ANOTHER good day of plating as well!!! That makes me happy! I LOVE plating! I always rely in my shredded carrots to give it color though! But that’s not a problem, is it? Anyway, that was my meal.

Click HERE to see this amazing cookbook that I got for Christmas. It also has the recipe in it, so yep! hope you enjoy… and MAYBE buy the book too! I recommend you do! It’s GREAT!!!! Bon Appetite!

Tonight’s Meal: Fried Pork Chops and Barbeque Rice

Tonight I made dinner. Yeah, regarding the fact that I haven’t made anything for a while… I felt like making dinner. Which I should always feel like making dinner, but anyways. I made fried pork chops, and bar-b-q rice. Now, you may be asking me… “Bar-b-Q Rice, Dana? Seriously” Uh, yeah, I’m dead serious! And it was DELICIOUS! What I did was cook plain white rice, then when it was done, I added this Wicked Slow Cooker Sauce, from a company called Wildtree. The slow cooker sauce tastes just like bar-b-q sauce, and it’s all natural, so that’s what I used. Then I added Smoky Bar-B-Q seasoning from Pampered Chef and  mixed it all together, and it was the BOMB!!! It was the best rice I’ve had, since I had this really good Mexican rice at my friend’s house! Then the mean part, was Fried Pork! Mmmm, that was really good. What I did was beat some eggs, then I mixed some flour, salt, pepper, and some of that Smoky Bar-b-q seasoning in, and then I took my pork chops, dipped them in the egg, then the flour, and then fried them in a big pan with lots of  oil. They were really good! And I mean, like, RRREALLYYY good!! I loved plating my meal too. Tonight was the first night that I really actually plated my meal. What I did was I took some of the slow cooker sauce (I used the same ingredients a lot in this mean… love doing that!) and drew a line in the plate with it, then put the pork next to it. Then some shredded carrots, peas, and the rice on it. You know what, you can just look at the picture! I’ll have one on here. It was a really good meal!

I just realized tonight, that I’m almost done cooking through my cookbook (Get There and Cook)! It’s been a great experience for me! Once I’m done with it, I’m definitely taking a break from cooking through a cookbook. I will keep cooking, just not another cookbook for a while! But I’ll keep writing, cooking, and doing what I love to do!:)

A Thanksgiving Recap

Well, the Junior Chef will probably kill me for this, but as her mom I can’t resist saying how extremely proud I am of the work Dana did to make our Thanksgiving Dinner special.  It was wonderful! Here’s a recap of her menu:

• Cranberry Glazed Turkey
• Boiled Beef Dinner (Get in There and Cook)
• Masked Baked Potatoes (Paula Deen)
• Sweet Potato Casserole
• Steamed Green Beans
• Cranberry Salad (Paula Deen)
• Rolls
• Pumpkin Pie
• Stuffing (the only thing I fixed…it was Stovetop!)
• Gravy (ok, I made the gravy, too)

 

 

Boiled Beef Dinner

This is the other dish that I made for Thanksgiving. My mom can’t have poultry, so every year we make her some kind of beef or something that she can eat, and can enjoy too. I started with a big slab of brisket. Raw of course. I boiled 2 cans of vegetable broth, and a little water. Then I put the meat in that, lowered the heat, and cooked it for 1 hour. I also put a bay leaf, and some nutmeg in too. Then I refrigerated everything over night, then cooked it in a pan the next day. It was very easy! And I was fun… just not hard at all. It didn’t even take long. The preparation I mean… the cooking took longer, but everything else was really quick! It was really yummy too!

Corn and Cheese Pudding

A few days ago, I made a REALLY yummy pudding. It’s not the usual chocolate, or vanilla pudding, but it was a sweet, corn pudding! It was really good. And easy too. Here’s how it’s done. First I started with 3 corn cobs (fresh) and cut all the corn off of it, into a bowl. Then after that they were all cut off, I mixed those with 3 eggs, milk, chicken broth, a little salt, and pepper, some nutmeg, cayenne, and Monterey Jack Cheese! YUM! Then I put that in a 9 inch round pan, then cooked it for 45 minutes. Then it came out nice and hot and delicious! I fell in LOVE with it! It’s the most amazing pudding I’ve ever had. Better than Chocolate… well… never mind. Nothing is better than chocolate, so I take that back! It was great though! So, I think it’s about time for those who don’t have this cookbook to get it. It’s amazing! So BUY it!!!! Haha.. no you don’t have to if you don’t want too, but it’s really great!

Potatoes Boulangere

Tonight I made a REALLY good potato dish! Called well look at the top, you’ll find out there!

I started by caramelizing an onion. I cut it into slices, then put that, and a bay leaf in some hot oil. While that was going on, I sliced three cloves of garlic. Then when they were nice and sliced, they went in with the onions. Then that just sat and did its thing, while I started cutting some potatoes up. I had four russet potatoes that had to be sliced into circles. (I think it’s funny that everything in this recipe is SLICED!) Then everything was read for assembling. First I got a casserole dish, that I rubbed olive oil in, then added some of the potatoes, then some of the onion mixture (of course removing the bay leaf), then potatoes, then the rest of the onions. Then I put some chicken broth in, until it almost got to the top. Then I put it into a 425 degree oven. That cooked for 45 minutes, then was ready to be eaten up! And I have to say, those were some down-right good potatoes! Interesting too. I never cooked potatoes in chicken broth. But it gave it a good flavor. Definitely a keeper! Something quick and easy… I like it!!!!

Cold Sesame Salad

A few days ago, I made a really weird, but cool recipe out of “Get in There and Cook”.  I don’t know what kind of food it was. I’m guessing sort of Chinese-ish, but you never know. I started by cooking up some spaghetti noodles. While those were cooking, I mixed together the cold sauce I would be putting on my noodles. I started by mixing up some peanut butter (weird, I know… but it gave it a really good flavor), soy sauce, hot sauce (just a little), and some salt and pepper in a blender. I got that all blended together, and then set that aside to let it get to room temperature. All I had to do at that time, was wait for my noodles to be done. When they were finished, I drained them, then put them in some cold water to chill out.  Haha! Get it? “chill” out!!!! Anyway, so when they were done, I put them in the sauce and tossed them together, and it as all finished! YAY! But I do have to admit, it wasn’t the most pretty dish you’ve seen. But it was okay. The taste I mean. I didn’t LOVE it, but it was good. I haven’t had one dish in this cookbook that I don’t like. That’s how cool this cookbook is. I recommend it to anyone and everyone. It’s super good! I hope you enjoy the post! Not a long one, but sort and sweet!!!!

Chicken and Vegetable Curry

Tonight, well, was an interesting night. I made a really interesting, and challenging dish. There were lots of ingredients. Here’s the scoop!

So I started with 1 cup of chicken broth and half a cup of water (COLD WATER!!!!) and then I poached the chicken in that, until it was mostly cooked through, but I was going to be doing more cooking later on, so it didn’t have to be perfectly cooked. So while was happening, I chopped up tons of veggies. I sliced onion, chopped carrot, and sliced some red pepper. Then I sautéed those in a little dab of oil, until they were nice and soft. While I was cooking the veggies, I cooled the chicken in the broth, so it got nice and moist (don’t you hate it when the chicken is dry? Yuck!) . After that I switched it over to a plate. Then I added 1 tablespoon of curry into the veggies, and the poaching liquid. Then cooked that longer. After some of the liquid evaporated,   I pureed some of the veggie mixture. Only so I could thicken the mixture. Then that went back in, and cooked LONGER! At some point I added garlic, but I did so much, I can’t really remember EVER single thing that I did!!! So when that was pretty much done, I put the chicken back in the pot, and cooked it. I also made rice to go with the curry, just to give it more flavor, and made it more of an entrée! It was really good though. It had a weird color, but the second I tasted a piece of the chicken, I was in heaven. It’s filling though, so I made a pretty big plate, and didn’t even eat all of it! But it was good, and really fun to make. It just took a while.

I’m so sorry I haven’t posted things regularly. I’m a stressed a busy girl, and so is my mom, so we don’t have very often to make trips to the grocery store, so that explains that.  But since I don’t have much more time to finish this project, I’ll be doing more. But I do apologize. Anyway, enjoy the post!!!!!!!

Polenta with Marscapone

Tonight, my mom was dying for me to make polenta! So you know what I did! I made it! It was very interesting.  I haven’t made anything like this before.  Well first, I heated up 5 cups of milk. Then when that was nice and hot I added one cup of polenta.  Then here’s the deal. I had to keep it on the stove for an hour. And I had to stir it every ten minutes of that hour! Then on and on, and was like “this isn’t very thick” and it’ s still not that thick, but it turned out pretty good. So oh yeah, after the hour passed, I added 5 tablespoons of marscapone cheese to the polenta. Then that was pretty much it! So easy. But you see, I didn’t have much meat to cook, so all I did was the polenta. And polenta isn’t good without something to go with it, so yeah. But maybe I’ll make something to go with it tomorrow.

So some of you might be asking me what polenta is. Let me tell you! It’s basically a cornmeal. Just a different kind! Hope you enjoy the short, easy post!!!

Turkey Tenderloin

My friends dad, Mr. P is  super cool, and he’s been helping me a lot with my cooking. He works in the food industry handling food service contracts for the military.  Not only that but he is an amazing cook!  I went to their house a few weeks ago, and before I left he gave this amazing meat, that I didn’t even ask for, he was just like “here, I just got this in today, but I thought maybe you would enjoy making it” And I said “Totally, that’s sooo cool!” And I was just looking at it, dying to know what it was. And then I found out! It was turkey tenderloins wrapped in BACON! WRAPPED IN BBBAAAACCCOOONNN!!!! Okay, bacon is my absolute favorite, and I love it… as you can see above! !! But yeah, back to the subject. He was telling me how to prepare it (we’ll get to that in a second) and then I asked him how I was supposed to season it, and guess what he said? “Figure it out yourself!” Well, umm… thanks Mr. P, a big help… and I was thinking in my head “Look what you’ve done! I’m surely gonna mess up on this!” But it was nice of him, and I thought I could come up with some good seasonings to put on it. I was thinking about those tenderloins everyday, wondering what to do….. oh what to do?????? But then I decided to forget about it for a while. I thought maybe if I just wait until I cook them and get all my spices out, then I’ll get some ideas into my little brain! And I did! But before I say more, let me tell you how I was to prepare these little bundle of goodness. Mr P told me that first, I need to saute the tenderloins for ten minutes, just to get the sides nice and browned up, so they have a little crunch to it. And then I had to cook them in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes. Now when these bad boys were done… I was amazed! They were soooo good! Oh, you want to know how I seasoned them? Emeril Lagasse’s Turkey rub! I mean, you can’t go wrong with that can you? I also threw a little Southwestern seasoning on too. I don’t know why, but I thought it would give it some spice! So that’s all for now, and I hope you enjoy the post!!!