Zucchini and Chicken Salad

This recipe is adapted from a Martha recipe. Very delicious and easy summer dinner!

1/4 cup plus 1 Tbs. olive oil
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
coarse salt and ground pepper
1 Tbs. balsamic vinegar
2 tsp. white sugar
1 1/4 lbs. zucchini, thinly sliced
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast (or I used the meat from a store bought rotisserie chicken)
1 bunch (about 8 oz.) fresh spinach, chopped
1/2 red onion thinly sliced
3/4 cup pecans, chopped
1/4 grated Parmesan

1. In a large bowl, whisk together 1/4 cup oil and lemon juice, vinegar, and sugar; season with salt and pepper. Add zucchini; toss to coat, and let marinate while cooking chicken.

2. In a large nonstick skillet, heat remaining tablespoon oil over medium. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Cook chicken until golden brown and opaque throughout, about 7 minutes per side. Or if using rotisserie chicken, just heat it through (but be sure to still give the zucchini adequate time to marinate!)

3. Toss the warm chicken with zucchini mixture, spinach, onion, pecans, and Parmesan. Serve.

Easy and Delicious Key Lime Pie

I didn't know if I was a key lime pie fan or not, but I couldn't resist buying the cute little key limes at the farmer's market. I found a highly rated recipe on allrecipes.com and it was a success!

Ingredients:
1 9" prepared graham cracker crust
2 small cans of sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 cup of key lime juice (about 20 key limes)
1 Tbs. of grated lime zest

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. In a bowl, mix all the ingredients and pour into the pie crust.
3. Bake for 5-8 minutes until tiny pin hole bubbles burst on the surface. Do not brown. Chill pie thoroughly before serving.

One hint for juicing those key limes is to use a garlic press. It's still time consuming but so much easier on the fingers. And also, we served our pie with fresh whipped cream. It is very rich and very tart, but now I can say, I am a key lime pie fan!

Melissa d'Arabian's 4 Step Chicken

I saw a rerun of "The Next Food Network Star," and it inspired me to give the winner's 4 Step Chicken a try. We loved it. Here is the recipe copied and pasted from here.

Ingredients:
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, sliced in half crossways (butterflied, cut all the way through)
1 teaspoon dried thyme, plus 1 small bunch fresh thyme, leaves chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup white wine, optional
1 cup chicken broth
3 lemons, juiced

Directions:
Season chicken with dried thyme and salt and pepper. Heat a large saute pan over medium heat and add the oil. Dredge the chicken in flour, add to the hot oil and saute until cooked through. Set chicken aside to rest on plate tented with foil.

In same saute pan, over low heat, add onions and fresh thyme and cook until aromatic.

In a measuring cup, measure out wine, if using, and broth, and add the lemon juice. Turn the heat up to high, and deglaze the pan with the broth mixture until starting to reduce.

Remove the pan from the heat and finish the sauce by whisking in butter. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Place a bed of cooked spinach on a serving platter, top with the chicken. Spoon the sauce over the chicken and serve.


If you read reviews of the recipe from the link above, some people said it was better when they cut back on the lemon. I used all 3 lemons, and yes it was tangy, and very flavorful. I loved the tastes of the lemon and red onion battling against each other. I didn't use the white wine, and I only used fresh thyme. We didn't have spinach on hand, but I bet the bed of cooked spinach would go well with the lemony sauce. (She includes the recipe for the bed of spinach as well--I didn't copy and paste that part in, so click on the link for that.)

Review (Rachel)

I decided to write a quick post about the recipes I've tried from this blog:

Oreo Cake Balls

These were tasty, but I don't recommend making them unless you have a party or something. We had leftovers for a few weeks (had to toss the last of them). But if you have a large group, it's an impressive and easy treat.

Oh Mommy! Pork Tenderloin

This was delicious. But again, not for two people, unless you're okay with eating leftover tenderloin at lunch for about a week. I never cooked pork before, ever. At all. So this was new for me, and I made some big mistakes in the process, but I was able to save it in the end.

I had fresh ginger on hand, so I minced up some ginger--which I think made it a tad too gingery. So if I make it again, I'll add less ginger (if using fresh ginger). But this wasn't really a mistake, but more of taste preference.

Here are my rookie mistakes:

1. I forgot to spray the pan.
2. I was really dumb, and I dumped the marinade into the pan with the pork. The marinade burned, leaving a lovely black mess on my Pyrex.
3. After it had cooked for 25 minutes, a wide crevice straight down the middle showed that the insides were far from being cooked. Then I was like, oh, it's two pieces! Dur. I had taken the two tenderloins out of the plastic thinking it was just one big hunk of meat. So since I had to separate the pieces, I removed them from the burnt pan as well, and placed them in another (sprayed) pan to cook some more. It took about 20-25 more minutes to finish cooking. But! The end result was perfectly fine. Although the kitchen smelled like burnt marinade all night.

Lulu's Oven Stew

Since I've grown up eating this stew, I already knew it was delicious before I made it. Easy to make, and the leftovers are great.

Next up, I hope to make Ashley's Zucchini Fritters and Elise's Creamy Chicken Tortilla Soup.

Norwegian Pancakes

Norwegian Pancakes

Our friends, Aaron and Julia, had us over for breakfast one morning, and they served us Norwegian Pancakes. Today, I decided to give it a try.

Ingredients:

1 egg

1 cup of milk

1/2 cup of flour

1/2 teaspoon of salt

Also needed: sugar, a stick of butter, and/or Nutella if you're lucky.

Warm up a a medium-sized skillet over medium heat.

Using either a blender or a mixer (I use a hand-held mixer), mix egg, milk, flour and salt. Blend until the mixture is well-blended.

Take the stick of butter (still in its wrapper) and unwrap one end of the stick, so part of the butter is exposed and you can still comfortably hold the covered end in your hand. Rub the bottom of the pan with the butter (if the butter browns immediately, that's okay). Pour 1/4 cup of the batter onto the pan, and immediately move the pan around so the batter is evenly covering the bottom. You want these to be as thin as possible. Let the pancake cook until the edges get a little crispy and the bottom side has browned a bit. Flip the pancake over and while the other side cooks, take the butter again and rub it all over the cooked side. (The first pancake I made didn't flip very well--but once the pan was hot and buttery enough, you should be able to flip the pancakes quite easily.) When you think the second side is finishing cooking, slide the pancake onto a plate.

Sprinkle the buttered side with sugar (the more, the better of course), roll the pancake up, and enjoy!

Repeat process with each pancake.

And of course, if you have Nutella, that would be really yummy too. And as a tip, it really is easiest to rub the butter directly onto the pancake when it's still hot--the pancakes are too thin to have butter spread onto them as though buttering a piece of bread.

These are quick and easy to make (and cheap). The cook does have to make them one by one, so mama might not be able to sit down right away, since these need to be eaten immediately after they slide off the pan.

Yummy Treat!

Val brought these little guys over the night before they left. Her cousin made them and told her how, so this recipe is more like a method and I have never done it myself. I have, however, eaten them myself and they are GOOD!! And they sound very easy too!

Have you heard of cakeballs? They're very trendy right now. Not quite as trendy as cupcakes, but still popular. I imagine that you can do the same cute things with these babies as you can with cakeballs.

And "these babies" need a name...anyone want to take that on?

Ingredients:
1 package of oreos
1 package of cream cheese
meltable chocolate for dipping
sprinkles (jimmies) for sprinkling

1. Val's cousin used a stand mixer, I don't have one so I might try the food processor, but crush the oreos in the mixer. Add in the cream cheese and mix til combined.

2. Form the dough into balls about the size of a walnut and put in the fridge to harden.

3. Melt your chocolate and dip the balls.

4. Top with sprinkles (or anything really).

5. Keep them stored in the fridge.

Easy Turkey Stromboli

I found this recipe in Parents magazine and it looked pretty easy and tasty so we decided to try it.

1 pkg (10 oz.) frozen, chopped spinach, thawed and well drained
1 pkg (11 oz.) refrigerated thin crust pizza crust
1 cup pasta sauce, divided (I would probably have double what they recommend)
2 tsp low fat milk
1/2 cup shredded Colby & Monterey Jack cheese blend
2 tsp grated Parmesan
1 lb. turkey-breast tenderloins, cut into strips (it would be good with this I am sure but we used chicken instead)


Heat oven to 400 degrees. Boil a cup of water on medium in a large skillet; add turkey and return to boiling. Cover; simmer 8 to 10 minutes. Allow to cool slightly, then chop.
Unroll crust into a 14"x12" rectangle on a parchment-lined baking sheet (I just greased my pan). Spoon half the sauce down the center, lengthwise, leaving 3" on either side. Layer spinach, turkey, and cheese over sauce. Cut 12 strips on both sides of crust. Fold strips over filling, so they overlap. Brush with milk and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.
Bake for 12 minutes. Serve with remaining sauce (this is where we used more sauce.)

For those interested, if made to their specifications, the Nutrition Info is as follows:
Per serving (makes 6 servings):
305 calories; 27g protein; 8g fat; (3g sat. fat); 31 carb; 2g fiber; 157mg calcium; 3mg iron; 553mg sodium.