Chicken Crapiccata

Having a cooking blog isn't just about sharing successes. It is also important to share failures. Not only does it keep a person humble, but it's a great way to spread the misery of a terrible meal. Perhaps someone can offer some advice on how to enhance this mongol-food of a meal.

Granted, I have never really liked Chicken Piccata. I've received it by accident at a restaurant (honestly, I wanted Jamaican Chicken), and I've had it at a restaurant where I used to work. Both times I was neither impressed or satiated. In fact, I was very put off by the meal. Evidently all of this had slipped my mind as I got excited about making a "white wine and lemon sauce."

Ingredients:
4 chicken tenders
rosemary, sage and thyme
lemon pepper
1 large lemon (1/2 c lemon juice and 1 Tbsp lemon zest)
1/2 c Chardonnay
1/2 c chicken broth
olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
spaghetti
parsley
oregano
flour

Cut slits on each side of the tenders, lightly dash some lemon pepper on both sides of the tenders and place in a small tupperware dish with olive oil, lemon zest, some thyme, rosemary and sage. Put a little bit of lemon juice in there as well. Cut up one clove of garlic and scatter that in there too. Let the chicken marinate for at least an hour.


After the chicken has marinated, pour the contents of the tupperware into a saucepan. Add a little bit of oil if necessary until the surface of the saucepan is covered with oil. Turn the heat on med-high and let the chicken cook evenly.

While the chicken is cooking, put some spaghetti on to boil. Combine the wine, lemon juice, and chicken broth in a container, adding the parsley and oregano. After the chicken is done cooking, remove it from the saucepan. Add the chopped up 2 cloves of garlic to the remaining olive oil (shouldn't be very much, but drain it if it is).

After letting that simmer on medium for a short while, scatter a couple of Tbsps of flour onto the saucepan, letting it absorb the oil. Then slowly pour the lemon juice/wine/chicken broth mixture in, turning the heat up to high. Stir continuously until a thick sauce forms. At some point during this you'll want to drain the spaghetti.

Once the sauce forms, pour it over the chicken and spaghetti.

It's a pretty easy recipe, and maybe that is part of the problem. Perhaps I left out some extremely vital step to making this tasty. The worst part was the sauce, hands down. The best part was the awesomely marinated chicken. So I just scraped the sauce off of the chicken and ate that. The pasta was too far gone.

I dare encourage you to make this dish and tweak it somehow. Let me know how it goes for you. Or don't tweak it all and see how you like it. Maybe I just don't like chicken piccata. It wouldn't be the first time.

A Yummy Meal

Baked chicken, pasta salad, and a peanut butter/honey/banana dessert.

Baked chicken:

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts

1 shallot sliced

2 cloves of garlic, sliced

Fat free Italian dressing

pepper

garlic powder

oregano

Preheat the oven to 350. Arrange the chicken breasts in a cooking dish, so that there is not a lot of extra room (preferrably a smaller cooking dish). Lightly cover each side of the breasts with pepper, oregano and garlic powder. Place the sliced shallot and garlic on top of each breast, and then drizzle with the dressing. While it shouldn't completely submerge the chicken breasts, it should pretty well cover them.

Place in oven for 15 minutes, then flip the chicken breasts over. Cook for 15 more minutes or until cooked through.

Pasta Salad (I got this from my roommate, and it's SO good...and will last for several days!)

A little less than a pound of multicolor twirly pasta

2-3 cups of fresh spinach leaves

3/4 can of black olives, drained and sliced

3/4 of a red bell pepper, cut into pieces

some feta cheese, cut up

very thinly sliced red onion

olive oil/vinegar salad dressing

cherry tomatoes, halved

Boil pasta to al dente, then drain. Add all of the other ingredients and two (maybe 3) capfuls of the salad dressing. Done.

Dessert (pay close attention here)

1 small banana

some peanut butter

some honey

1 slice of toast

Smash the banana, add the peanut butter and honey. Mix. Smear on top of toast. Eat.

This meal was positively delicious, incorporating different flavors and textures. Luckily I have enough to last me three more meals. The total cost was about..$18 (including organic ingredients). For four healthy, nutritious meals that's not bad at all. And it's really easy to make. I hope you try this out!

My Favorite Pasta

This dish my favorite pasta dish, and I learned it from my mother. I rarely make it, because it IS fattening (cream, butter...need I say more), but it's SO delicious. My favorite part about it is definitely the sherry.

I typically make enough pasta/cream sauce for one serving, but enough chicken for two. That way, I can use the leftover chicken for the next day's lunch. The cream sauce, as most cream sauces, is not especially fantastic leftover. Edible and tasty for sure, but the consistency is not right. Even so, this rich pasta leaves me so full, I often have enough leftover anyway.


Ingredients:

5-6 chicken tenders (or 2 chicken breasts cut into tender-sized pieces)
1/4 c sliced mushrooms
1 shallot
1/2 c grated parmesan cheese
italian bread crumbs
olive oil
1-2 Tbsp of butter
heavy whipping cream
linguine or angelhair pasta
garlic
.....and SHERRY


1. Put however much linguine you want on to boil. Heat some olive oil in a large skillet, and in a separate skillet put the mushrooms and butter on to heat, sauteeing the mushrooms.


2. Add sliced garlic to the olive oil, add the sliced shallot to the mushrooms.


3. Bread the chicken tenders in the bread crumbs and place them in the olive oil to cook. Once they are brown on one side, turn them over. Once that side is brown as well, lower the heat and cook for about 5 minutes on each side.


4. Pour in some heavy whipping cream to the mushrooms and shallot. Imagine how much sauce you want to eat at the end (1/2 c should be good...) and add 1/4 c more. That's how much cream you should pour in. Stir this continuously.

5. As the chicken is near being done, slowly add parmesan cheese to the cream sauce. I really have no special measurement here. To taste, to consistency, whatever. Cook this down a little bit. About now you'll be able to drain the linguine.

6. Add 1 Tbsp (at least!) of sherry to the cream sauce. After that, depending on how much sherry I need in my life, I add by the tsp, stirring and tasting each time.

Stir again one last time. Hopefully it has reached a thicker consistency. If not, continue to cook it on low heat. But watch it, or it will become too thick. Pour on top of the linguine and add 2-3 chicken tenders on top. Sprinkle the top with a bit of parmesan cheese, and voila!

Enjoy!