Lemon-Baked Chicken Breasts

Lemon-Baked Chicken Breasts

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 whole chicken breasts, each about 1 1/4 pounds, halved
1 cup dry white wine
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, crumbled
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, or to taste

In a large heavy skillet, preferably cast-iron, heat the butter and oil over moderately high heat until the foam begins to subside, add the chicken, patted dry, skin side down, without crowding, and sauté it, turning it, until
it is golden. Transfer the chicken with tongs to a baking dish and pour off
the excess fat from the skillet. Add the wine and the thyme to the skillet, bring the liquid to a boil, scraping up the brown bits. And pour the pan
juices over the chicken. Season the chicken with salt and pepper, sprinkle
it with the lemon juice, and bake it in the lower third of a preheated 400-degree F oven for 30 minutes, or until juices run clear.

Yorkshire Pudding

Happy St. Patrick's Day Everybody!!!

 

Yorkshire Pudding

1 heaping cup flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

2 eggs

1-2 ounces melted fat (beef, duck, lard, butter, oil)

In a bowl combine flour, salt, and milk until well blended. Incorporate both eggs and blend together until you have a smooth liquid batter. Let stand at room temperature for 1 hour.

To bake in a 9×13 ovenproof dish:

Preheat oven at 450°F. Place dish in oven and heat for 10 minutes. Place the fat into the dish and continue heating for 10 to 15 minutes. Pour the prepared batter into the dish and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Serve immediately.

To bake in a large 6 muffin pan:

Preheat oven to 375°F. Place pan in oven and heat for 10 minutes. Place equal amounts of the fat into each muffin mold and continue heating in oven for 10 to 15 minutes. Pour equal amounts of prepared batter into each muffin mold and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. Serve immediately.

Strawberry Baked French Toast

Last week I bought an entire flat of strawberries from our Bountiful Basket site here. I came home with all these delicious ideas of what to do with them- By Sunday more than half of them had already been eaten! So I panicked! I hid them all ... and (I'm so embarrassed to even admit this..) I forgot about them.. yes I know. Shameful! So now I have slightly less than a half a flat of strawberries that need to be eaten or frozen today. Oh, no worries. Easy! To help, I actually served this for lunch today. The kiddos were thrilled at having French Toast for lunch!
For the bread, I used a bunch of leftover dinner rolls from last week as well as the heels of several loaves of bread cut into bite-sized pieces.

Strawberry Baked French Toast





For the toast:

• 1 (1 pound) loaf French bread, cut diagonally in 1 inch slices
• 8 eggs
• 2 1/4 cups milk
• 1 cup FF sour cream
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the topping:

• 2 cups diced fresh strawberries
• 1/4 cup agave*
• 8oz. Fat-free cream cheese, softened
• 1 egg

Directions:

1. Butter a 9x13 inch baking dish. Arrange the slices of bread in the bottom. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, milk, sour cream, vanilla and cinnamon. Pour over bread slices, cover, and refrigerate overnight.
2. The next morning, preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Combine the strawberries and agave in a medium bowl. Mix well and set aside for about 5 minutes. Stir in the cream cheese and egg until well blended. Spread the strawberry cream cheese mixture onto egged bread pieces.
3. Bake in preheated oven, covered, for 40 minutes.

This is not overly sweet, which I love, but if you need to sweeten this up a bit, try serving it with some strawberry or real maple syrup. Also try serving with fresh strawberries and freshly whipped cream.

*You can use 1/4 cup sugar or honey instead of agave. I like to use agave on fruit because it adds sweetness, without a lot of extra calories or without altering the flavor very much. If you use sugar, let the strawberries sit for about 15 minutes before adding cream cheese and egg. 

Reduced Fat Meatloaf

Okay, most people don't exactly think of meatloaf as a "healthy" food- but it is oh so comforting and delicious that we eat it anyway, right? Most of the deliciousness of the traditional meatloaf comes from the beef fat soaking the bread crumbs and combining with egg yolks, not to mention of course a heaping dose of extra salt and corn syrup in the form of ketchup... But really, people- It doesn't have to be this way! When it comes to cooking, I try to follow one simple rule: Substitute fat for flavor! Instead of relying on fat, salt and sugar to make things taste good, I try to add plenty of flavorful vegetables, fresh herbs and seasonings. Most people would never never guess that most of what I put out on my table is good for you... 
 
Reduced Fat Meatloaf

1-1/2 lbs. extra-lean ground beef, ground turkey breast, or extra-lean ground turkey
2 egg whites
1 tsp. chopped garlic
1/2 cup chopped onions
3/4 cup chopped green pepper

1/2 cup finely chopped celery
1/2 cup unsweetened tomato sauce
1 cup rolled oats
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1/4 cup fresh parsley (or basil if you have it available!)
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place all ingredients in a large bowl and mix together well with wooden spoons or hands. Place on board or waxed paper and shape into loaf, then place in loaf pan and bake for about 1 hour. Depending on the shape and thickness of the loaf, it may need to cook for slightly longer. Serves 6. If you need more "sauce" when serving, skip the ketchup and use unsweetened tomato sauce sprinkled with basil and oregano.

Preparation Time: 20 minutes

Cooking Time: 1 hour


When I make this recipe I usually make at least double- one for now and one for later. To freeze for later, cook as above. Allow meatloaf to cool completely, remove from pan, then wrap tightly in plastic wrap and heavy duty aluminum foil. Label and freeze up to 3 months. To serve: Allow to thaw in the refrigerator then cook covered in a 350 degree oven for 30-60 minutes or until fully heated.

Mellissa's Birthday Cake

I am an amateur cake artist. I like to bake. I like to draw.. so cake decorating should come naturally, right? *snort* Not so much... Here is an evolution of cakes:

Mellissa's 1st birthday

Savanna's 4th Birthday

Savanna's 6th birthday

Marsa's 2nd birthday

Yes I know there's a lot of gaps.. The missing cakes were SO terrible I didn't even take pictures! My favorite mishap was Savanna's 5th birthday cake. She wanted a Dora and Diego cake that was blue with purple frosting and chocolate... Sounds gorgeous right? Ugh!
And here is Mellissa's cake. My crown jewel to this point! It was a lot of fun to make and best of all people never guessed that I actually made it! lol Maybe some day I will look back on this cake and be embarrassed but for now I think it turned out great. :)

My favorite part of this cake was the teapot.. the one in the pictures is a plastic teapot.. but I actually made one out of white chocolate as well that I ended up not using. Last minute I decided that it looked a bit weird, plus I couldn't figure out how to let 14 4-year-olds divide it up... The plastic teapot is a bit big, I think, for the size of the cake but oh well, right?

To make the chocolate teapot, I melted 1 bag (12 oz.) of white chocolate chips that I got on sale over Christmas time. (They were $.89/bag.)
I then lightly sprayed two "balls" in a Wilton mini-ball pan and poured half the melted chocolate into each one.

I let it cool for about 5 minutes in the refrigerator. Then scooped the soft middle out of each half of the ball to make a hollow chocolate shell.

I then used the semi-soft chocolate that I'd scooped out to "glue" the two halves of the ball together. Then I formed a handle, spout, and lid with it and attached that as well. By this point the chocolate was getting pretty hard again, but I just let it warm up a bit in my hands so I could shape it and attach. The rest of the decorations on the teapot were made with tinted Royal icing.

If you're not impressed yet, then I'll tell you that I also made 14 tutus and wings for all the cute little guests as well. Did that do it? I sure hope so since that's why I do these sort of things anyway. To impress all of you folks out there! Seriously, all the hard work was so worth it just to see such a cute group of kids having so much fun!

Valentines Day Fun

I didn't make anything super extraordinary for Valentine's Day. But I made the day fun with heart shaped food all day! For the little kids anyway... My boys weren't too excited about a heart-shaped steak at dinnertime...

We had heart shaped pancakes. I even threw some strawberry gelatin into the batter for pink and flavored pancakes. But was too busy getting kids off to school to take a picture.

At lunchtime I let the kids choose what kind of sandwich they'd like and cut them all into heart shapes for them. I even cut the apples into hearts and served pink lemonade with heart-shaped strawberries.

 Then we had some non-food fun and made some Valentines. Kids love to glue things. They were entertained for MINUTES! (Seriously.. almost an hour which is amazing!)






For dessert, if I'd thought ahead a few more days, we would have had this cake. (I didn't end up actually making it until last night) So FUN!

Happy Late Valentine's Day everybody. Hope yours was as fun as mine!

Runzas

When I was growing up my dad used to take us to Cabella's in Nebraska once in a while. As a special treat we'd go across the street and grab some Runzas for lunch before the long drive home. Yum! I don't know if I would have appreciated them as much if I'd known how easy they were to cook..

I made these last week sometime (don't ask me to remember actual dates please). I didn't have cabbage, but I got two heads of salad savoy in my Bountiful Basket the week before so I used one of those instead. (A little bit milder tasting than cabbage but still excellent, in my opinion.)

Runzas

1 lb lean ground beef
1 onion, chopped
4 cups chopped cabbage
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 recipe bread dough of your choice (also works fine with frozen/defrosted rolls)
8 slices Swiss, Mozzarella or Provolone cheese

Brown beef and onion in skillet. Add cabbage and cover. Cook 5 minutes until cabbage is tender crisp. Drain off liquid. Add salt and pepper and mix well. Cool in refrigerator while making dough.

Roll dough out to form two *12x14-inch rectangles. Cut the rectangles into 8 squares each. Place about 1/4-1/2 cup of meat-cabbage mixture in the middle of 8 of the squares. Moisten edges of squares with water. Top with sliced cheese and remaining squares of dough. Press dough firmly around the edges.

Place on greased baking sheets. Cover lightly with a clean dish towel. Let rise about 30 minutes or until light. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 20 minutes.

* the dough will be thin- if you like a thicker bread taste, roll just one rectangle about twice as thick for half as many finished runzas. Also, unless you've got somebody with OCD in your family.. don't worry if your Runzas are oddly shaped. I didn't! ;)