Buca Di Peppo Lemon Chicken

Cut up the lemons, make the juice and mix with wine
Salt & Pepper chicken, dust with flour, lay in olive oil pan.
Sizzle
Serve with Broccoli, if you wish!
Buca Di Peppo Lemon Chicken

Ingredients

• 2 chicken breasts, boneless, skinless (about 3/4 lb total)
• salt, to taste
• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 4 large lemons
• 4 ounces unsalted butter, softened
• 2 tablespoons capers

Directions

1. Cut three lemons in half and use for fresh lemon juice. Pour the juice through a fine strainer. Cut the last lemon into wedges for garnish.
2. Begin to heat the olive oil in a 12 inch sauté pan on med-high.
3. Pound the chicken to about 1/4 inch thickness.
4. While oil is getting hot, lightly season both sides of the chicken breast with salt.
5. Lightly dust the chicken breast in the flour, shake off excess flour.
6. Place chicken in the sauté pan skin side down; when the chicken is golden brown, turn over and brown the other side as well. It is important to brown both sides to insure the chicken is completely cooked through.
7. When both sides are nice and brown, add white wine and lemon juice.
8. Continue to cook for approximately two to three minutes. The liquid should reduce approximately half.
9. Once the liquid is reduced, remove the chicken breasts from the pan and turn off heat.
10. Check to make sure the chicken breasts are cooked by turning each piece of chicken over and cutting it halfway through with a knife. There should be no visible pink. If the chicken is not completely cooked through, place inches a 400 degree oven for five minutes to complete cooking.
11. Finish the sauce by placing the softened butter in the pan. Using rubber spatula, work the butter into the sauce as it melts.
12. Add capers to the sauce.
13. Pour sauce directly on top of chicken breasts. Garnish with lemon wedges.

Crock pot: Honey Mustard Chicken/Broccoli Cheese Casserole

Honey Mustard Chicken and Broccoli Casserole- This chicken is from the Kitchen of Callan Elizabeth... we were born together, so we also share recipes!
Before put in the oven, assembled
Right out of oven

Finished product while serving
Honey Mustard Chicken in crock pot
Making the marinade!
Eat up!

Honey Mustard Chicken

4 Boneless, Skinless Chicken breasts
1/4 cup Dijon Mustard
1/2 cup Honey
1/4 cup brown Sugar

Mix the mustard, honey and brown sugar together to make marinade. Put chicken breasts in the bottom of crock pot, turn on high for 4 hours. Check to spoon sauce over the chicken periodically.



Broccoli & Cheese Rice Casserole

2 cups Velveeta Cheese Shredded
2 Cups rice
2 cups broccoli
1/2 can cream of chicken soup

Cook rice according to directions, cook broccoli according to directions, steam or if frozen. Mix rice, soup and broccoli together, top with Cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste. Put in 350 oven for 30 minutes.

Crockpot Week!

For any of you out there who look for crockpot recipes to try because they care easy and you work or you have young kids at home and just need something simple to put together at the beginning of the day, Here are a few recipes that I am going to try this week and blog about.

IT's CROCK POT WEEK!

Honey Mustard Chicken
Black Bean Stuffed Peppers
Chocolate Brownie Pudding Cake
Italian Chicken
Crock pot Roast
Chicken Parmesan

Hopefully there will be some winners! Stayed tuned for pictures and reviews

Whole Wheat White Sauce Tomato Pizza

I was worried about this pizza to be honest and it turned out sooo good! Even Daniel liked it. Very healthy whole wheat crust, part-skim ricotta cheese... the weight watchers points are 4 pts a slice!

The dough, getting ready to rise! Let sit for 1 hour

The dough has doubled in size, then you punch it down and kneed it, let sit for 10 minutes before baking it.

Slice up some fresh tomatoes!

Pre-bake crust for 5 minutes, this is what it looks like prior to topping it

Topped with the toppings, yum, then put it in the oven for 12 minutes, broil for 2 to brown crust

Pizza baking in the oven

Finished product, it was soooo good!

Cut and eat, very delicious!

Recipe:

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

Source: Culinary in the Desert, Adapted from Eating Well

Ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup all purpose flour

2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast (One packet)

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon sugar

3/4 cup warm water

1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions:

Combine flours, yeast, salt, and sugar in a stand mixer, using the dough hook attachment, mix on low speed.

Combine warm water and oil in a measuring cup.

With the motor running on low speed, gradually pour in enough of the liquid until the mixture forms a sticky ball. The dough should be quite soft. If it seems dry, add 1 to 2 tablespoons of warm water; if too sticky, add 1 to 2 tablespoons flour.

Mix until the dough forms a ball, then increase the speed to medium and mix for 1 minute to knead.

Lightly coat a large bowl with cooking spray. Place dough inside, turning to coat. Cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel and let rise about an hour, or until doubled in size.

Punch down and let the dough rest for about 10 minutes before rolling.

*If you want to knead by hand feel free - knead for about 10 minutes.

As made, this recipe makes about 1 pound of dough.

To Bake:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Sprinkle a little cornmeal on a clean surface and roll out the dough, use your hands to stretch it out. Place on sprayed pizza pan and spread out to desired thinness and size.

Pre-bake dough in oven for 3-4 minutes. Add desired toppings and bake until crust is golden brown and cheese is melted and bubbly, approximately 12 minutes or so.

White Tomato Pizza

Source: inspiration from Dovino's Pizza

Ingredients:

1 crust recipe of your choice

Approx. 1/4-1/2 cup part skim ricotta cheese

2 cups 2 % shredded mozzarella cheese

Sliced Tomatoes

1/4 tsp. Garlic Powder

1/4 tsp. kosher salt

Parmesan cheese & chopped parsley or basil for serving

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pre-bake crust for 4-5 minutes. Spray crust with cooking spray and sprinkle with garlic powder. Top crust with ricotta, mozzarella and tomatoes, sprinkle with salt. Bake for approximately 10 minutes, then watching closely Broil for about 1-2 minutes until crust is golden brown and cheese is bubbly. Serve and top with parmesan cheese & parsley if desired.

Daniel said he'd eat it again, so that is the true test of it's good!

Southwest Chicken Chili

This is inspired from the Southwest Chicken Chili from Jason's Deli.

Boil and dice up chicken

Add all the cans of ingredients and the Chicken all in one pot

Heat for 30 minutes, serve with Cheddar cheese and chopped red onion

I love chili, so I seriously love to make different kinds of chili and see how many kinds I can come up with. This is a play on the chili from Jason's Deli. Daniel wasn't feeling well one day and had me get him some soup from Jason's Deli and I decided to try their Southwest Chicken Chili and it was delicious, so what does ever redblooded cooking American do??...... study the ingredients and try to recreate it! haha... so here is what I came up with:

Basically it's can's of ingredients, so very easy to make, takes about 30mins from start to finish.

2 cans diced tomatoes (I used Chipotle flavored tomatoes, if you don't have these, then add 1/2 teaspon of chipotle seasoning to soup)
1 can tomato sauce (8 oz)
1 can tomato paste (8 oz)
1 can kidney beans
1 can corn
1 can hominy (yellow)
1 can whole black beans
1 packet of McCormick Chili seasoning
1.5 lbs of cooked Chicken breast/or tenders
Optional topping: Red onion, Cheddar cheese

Cook chicken, dice it and add it to all the cans of ingredients and the chili packet.. Dump everything in a pot and cook on medium for 10 minutes they turn to very low for 10 minutes. Serve with Cheddar cheese and red onion on top!

Double Chocolate Peanut Butter/with Chocolate Chips Cookies.---Whoa

Let me just say, you need to drink a glass of milk with these... they are rich and yummy and in desperate need of some milk to wash it down!

Creaming sugar and butter first together
Makes a very doughy dough.. I know that makes perfect sense
A pretty little cookie, with all the potential... roll it in a nice little ball.
When I took them out of the over, they were still in balls, they needed to be flattened, so I used a soup spoon to flatten them.
Here is what they looked like after!
Hopefully my little Twin Mom friends come with an appetite tonight, because I can't have these at my house for long!

yum yum


adapted from allrecipes
makes approximately 36 cookies

Ingredients
1 cup butter
½ cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy will work just fine)
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups peanut butter chips ( I used Chocolate Chips, because that was all I had)

Method
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Once the butter and sugar are well combined, stir in the eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt, stir into the creamed mixture. Finally, fold in the peanut butter chips.
3. Drop cookies by heaping teaspoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets.
4. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until set. Cool on wire racks.


Daniel is my little taste tester as you can tell I write what he thinks at the end of each post... he did like these cookies, he said they are very rich and chocolaty so you really have to like chocolate to like em! obviously.

Sea Scallops and Spinach

First put pepper and Kosher salt on the scallops, I used a few sea scallops and a few bay scallops, the bay scallops were WAY cheaper and taste the same, I recommend using them. First of all don't put too much salt, mine was too salty, so I say be very conservative with the kosher salt, a light sprinkle will do. After this you dust them in flour before dropping them in the pan.
cut up shallots and garlic, I used two smaller cloves of garlic, instead of the one larger clove, but I like garlic...
finely chop the flat leaf parsley.. I hadn't really chopped it up very much yet.
This is the scallops dropped in the pan with the butter and wine sauce sizzling!
yum, it thickens up because the flour from dusting the scallops gives it a nice thickness for the sauce.
Cook spinach per directions and top Scallops on the bed of spinach!
1 lb. fresh bay or sea scallops
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black peper
All-purpose flour, for dredging
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, divided
½ cup minced shallots (about 2 large)
1 clove garlic, finely minced
2-3 tbsp. flat-leaf parsley, minced
1/3 cup dry white wine
1 lemon, halved

Directions:
If using bay scallops, leave them whole. If using sea scallops, cut them in half horizontally (or, leave them whole and cook a bit longer). Season the scallops with kosher salt and black pepper, toss with flour, and shake off the excess.

In a large skillet or sauté pan, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter over high heat until sizzling. Add the scallops to the pan in a single layer. Lower the heat to medium and allow the scallops to brown lightly on one side without moving. Then turn and brown lightly on the other side. This should take about 3-4 minutes total (closer to 8 minutes for sea scallops left whole).

Add the rest of the butter to the pan with the scallops and let it melt. Add the shallots, garlic, and parsley to the pan and sauté for 2 more minutes, tossing the seasonings with the scallops. Add the wine to the pan and cook for 1 minute. Taste the sauce for seasoning and adjust as necessary. Serve hot, with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice over the scallops.

My comments: I liked this recipe, but like I said earlier, I added too much salt. So next time I won't add that much salt. It was nice and very filling, surprisingly! It also would be good served with a side of rice. Daniel liked it, but he did say it was way too salty, so I think if you don't use that much salt, it will be really delicious!

Enjoy!