The Pioneer Woman Cooks!

Don’t Miss It

Ree — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:55:27 +0000

Thank God it’s Friday!

Like, seriously.

As we enter the weekend, I wanted to make sure you don’t miss this deliciousness that has appeared on the Tasty Kitchen blog in recent days/weeks:

Jaden’s step-by-step Scallops ‘n Pasta. I want this for breakfast right now.

Magical Butter Sauce. This makes me want to cry, it looks so good. It also makes me want to make it.

Don’t forget to try these delicious Funnel Cakes, especially if you’ve never tried a Funnel Cake in your life. It’s an experience.

Another from this past week: The Best Frosting I’ve Ever Had. “Oh dear” is all I can really say. My taste buds sang. (Hint: many people claim to using this same frosting to fill homemade Ding Dongs and Cupcakes. Just reporting the facts here.)

And finally, this mixer. TK is giving one away today—go drop your name in the hat!

Have a wonderful weekend, my friends!

Love,
P-Dub

Caramelized Onion & Prosciutto Pizza

Ree — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:55:38 +0000

I had some leftover pizza dough (which is the best kind of pizza dough there is) in the fridge last night, so I whipped up this yummy—and exceedingly easy-to-make—pizza. Sweet, caramelized onions…salty prosciutto…beautiful fresh mozzarella. It all marries together in beautiful harmony.

Let’s just say I cried, it made me so happy.

Why does food make me cry?

I’m pursuing this question in therapy.

Here’s what you need…

Yes, I misspelled “prosciutto” on the first go ’round.

It happens sometimes.

I’m pursing that in therapy, too.

You also need one pizza crust, which is HALF of my pizza crust recipe. I used the first half for Monday’s BBQ Chicken Pizza; this half has been sitting in a bowl in the fridge ever since.

I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat: The pizza crust is better if you make it a day or two ahead of time!

Basic Pizza Crust

Back to the other ingredients: I love prosciutto. It’s an Italian dry-cured, very thinly sliced ham. Salty. Flavorful. Yummy. You can find it in many supermarkets, usually in the specialty cheese section.

The first thing we’re going to do is caramelize the red onions. Add some olive oil to a hot skillet…

Throw in the onions, which need to be pretty thinly sliced.

Sprinkle on some brown sugar so the onions will really caramelize. Of course, you can caramelize onions without adding sugar…but because the prosciutto is so salty, I really like the onions to be sweet.

Toss/stir them around and let them cook for a few minutes.

You want them to be lovely and brown and delicious.

Next, drizzle a little olive oil on a sheet pan, then spread it all around with your feengers.

Next, stretch or roll the pizza dough into a rectangle, place it on the pan, and drizzle a little olive oil onto the surface of the dough.

Sprinkle a little kosher salt on the dough…

And a little Parmesan, too.

Next, lay thin slices of mozzarella all over the dough. Be sure to slice it as thinly as you can since the pizza crust is on the thin side.

Next come the caramelized onions.

Really lay them on thick! The onions are a central ingredient in this pizza.

Then comes the prosciutto.

I just drape the slices here and there, so they’re evenly distributed.

End with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese, then pop the pizza into a 500 degree (hot!) oven for about 15 minutes.

Pull it out when the crust is golden and the cheese is bubbly and scrumptious.

This smells so, so good.

The prosciutto cooks just a little bit, and winds up being slightly crisp. The sweet onions settle into the mozzarella…oh, yum.

I think you’ll love this one.

And with that, I’ll try to hold off on pizza recipes for awhile!

I think.

If you hadn’t noticed, I’m on a little bit of a pizza jag right now.

It happens sometimes.

I’m pursuing that in therapy, too.

Enjoy!

Here are the handy printable recipes, both for the pizza and the crust:

Caramelized Onion & Prosciutto Pizza

3"x5" Cards | 4"x6" Cards | Full Page | Print

Prep Time: 15 Minutes

Cook Time: 15 Minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 whole Pizza Crust
Olive Oil, For Drizzling
1 whole Large Red Onion, Halved And Thinly Sliced
¼ cups Brown Sugar
Kosher Salt To Taste
Parmesan Cheese, Grated
10 ounces, weight Fresh Mozzarella Cheese, Thinly Sliced
8 slices Prosciutto (more To Taste)

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet. Add onions and brown sugar and toss/stir for several minutes, or until onions are brown and cooked. Set aside.

Roll out pizza dough to a rectangular shape. Drizzle on olive oil, sprinkle on a little salt, followed by a little Parmesan.

Lay slices of mozzarella evenly over the top of the crust. Arrange caramelized onions over the top of the mozzarella. Randomly lay slices of prosciutto over the onions.

Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the lower half of the oven, or until crust is golden brown. Remove from oven and cut into squares. Serve immediately.

Basic Pizza Crust

3"x5" Cards | 4"x6" Cards | Full Page | Print

Prep Time: 5 Minutes

Cook Time:

Difficulty: Easy

Servings: 12

Ingredients

1 teaspoon Instant Or Active Dry Yeast
1-½ cup Warm Water
4 cups All-purpose Flour
1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
⅓ cups Olive Oil

Preparation Instructions

Sprinkle yeast over 1 1/2 cups warm (not lukewarm) water.
In a mixer, combine flour and salt. With the mixer running on low speed (with paddle attachment), drizzle in olive oil until combined with flour. Next, pour in yeast/water mixture and mix until just combined.

Coat a separate mixing bowl with a light drizzle of olive oil, and form the dough into a ball. Toss to coat dough in olive oil, then cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and store in the fridge until you need it.

***It’s best to make the dough at least 24 hours in advance, and 3 or 4 days is even better.

***Makes 2 crusts.

That’s the Best Frosting I’ve Ever Had

Ree — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:15:24 +0000

Marlboro Man’s grandmother has some old friends visiting the area, and they’re staying at The Lodge up the road from our house. Yesterday evening I whipped up some chocolate cupcakes to take up to the guests, but instead of the typical chocolate icing I’d normally use, I wanted to try something different.

I remembered a recipe I’d seen on Tasty Kitchen several months ago, one whose name I found intriguing. The mix of ingredients seemed a little unusual, the technique a little off the beaten path (no pun intended)…so I decided to throw caution to the wind and give it a whirl.

The results?

Absolutely, positively unbelievable, and I don’t say that lightly.

This icing was out-of-this-world incredible.

You must try it sometime soon, if only to experience it once in your life.

Today I posted the step-by-step instructions on Tasty Kitchen:

A Tasty Recipe: That’s the Best Frosting I’ve Ever Had

Serve it on something chocolate.

You’ll just have to trust me on this.

CPK’s BBQ Chicken Pizza

Ree — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:03:43 +0000

When I was in college, California Pizza Kitchen was the height of awesomeness for my friends and me. A vegetarian at the time, I loved their deliciously thin and creatively adorned pizzas more than life itself. CPK was one of my favorite things.

In the years since leaving California, I’ve created occasional knockoffs of some of the CPK pizza varieties I remember, since there’s no CPK within at least 500 miles of the ranch—maybe even farther. Today I want to share my rendering of their very popular BBQ Chicken Pizza, which was a favorite of Jeff, my (platonic) roommate from Taiwan.

Ahhh, Jeff. I loved that guy.

Long story. Some other time.

For today, enjoy this pizza! And change it up however you’d like—I think CPK used a slightly different cheese than my plain mozzarella, and I’ve added slivers of fresh jalapeno and, once, chunks of fresh pineapple. Just use the basic recipe as a starting point and have some fun with it!

Here’s what you need for the pizza crust.

This is simple stuff here, my darlings!

To make the crust, sprinkle yeast over warm water and let it stand for a few minutes.

Next, add the salt to the flour.

And stir it around in the mixer for a few seconds.

Next, with the mixer on low, drizzle in the olive oil.

Stir it together till the olive oil is worked into the flour.

Next, pour in the warm water/yeast mixture.

Mix it together until the dough all comes together in a sticky mass.

Then just cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set it aside for 1 to 2 hours. Or, if you’d like to make it the day before, or even two days before, just park it in the fridge in the interim.

When you’re ready to make the pizza, here’s what you’ll need.

To begin, preheat the oven to 375 degrees, then throw the chicken breasts in an ovenproof dish…

Then grab your favorite BBQ sauce or marinade.

Pour it over the chicken…

Turn the chicken over and coat both sides well. Salt the chicken on both sides, too.

Throw the chicken in the oven for about 25 minutes. The BBQ sauce will get nice and brown and smoky and lovely.

*Shortcut* – You could also just buy a rotisserie chicken, then shred it and coat it in some BBQ sauce if you don’t want to cook the chicken yourself. This is flexible!

Remove the chicken from the oven. Pour on a little more BBQ sauce if it makes your skirt fly up.

Just set the chicken aside while you prepare the other ingredients.

Slice a red onion in half from root to tip, then pull out the center core so you can achieve clean half-moon slices.

Next, cut some fresh mozzarella into very thin slices.

Thin, because the crust is thin. And you don’t want things to get gloopy.

Cut up the BBQ chicken into thin, neat slices…

Then cut in the other direction to dice.

Finally, pour a little olive oil on a large sheet pan, then smear it all over the pan.

Grab HALF the pizza dough (recipe makes two crusts) and squeeze the dough toward the bottom to form a nice, tight, pulled ball.

I have no idea why I do this, except I saw it back in 2004 in an episode of “The Restaurant” with Rocco Dispirito. His good friend from Italy, Antonnio, is visiting New York and he shows Tony, the head chef at the time, how to make pizza. He always begins by squeezing the dough into a tight little ball…”like a woman’s bottom”, he says in Italian.

That was the best reality show known to mankind.

I want them to bring it back.

Though, I’m not sure Rocco and Jeffrey would be all too keen on working together again.

But if they did, I’d be watching.

(If you didn’t watch “The Restaurant” and have no idea what I’m talking about, I apologize.)

You can roll out the pizza with a rolling pin if you’d like, but sometimes it’s just as easy to throw it around and stretch it.

Believe me, I don’t know what I’m doing. And you don’t have to know what you’re doing either! Just pull and stretch till it feels right.

And when the crust is nice and thin, lay it on the oiled pan.

Drizzle a little olive oil on the dough and smear it around with your grubby fingers.

Then very lightly sprinkle some salt on the crust. Just a little bit.

NEXT: Normally, I would spread a very tiny, light layer of BBQ sauce on the crust, treating it as the pizza sauce. But I plum forgot.

Imagine if you will: four children. Four dogs. Cows in yard.

Enough said.

Now put a thin layer of mozzarella cheese all over the crust.

See…I could bake this right now and be perfectly happy in life.

But I think I’ll keep going. Add half the diced BBQ chicken and as many red onions as you can handle.

I went a little light on the red onions; next time I’ll add much more.

Since I hadn’t spread the sauce on the crust, I went ahead and drizzled a little on top of the assembled pizza.

Mmmm. Helloooo, lover.

And…HELLOOOO, lover!

Remove it from the pan…

Delicious!

Zee crust eez goot!

But we’re not finished yet.

Chop up plenty of crisp, fresh cilantro.

And sprinkle it on top of the pizza before serving. This gives it a yummy, unexpected edge. Love it!

Mmmm…come to where the flavor is.

Come to BBQ Chicken Pizza Country.

Enjoy!

Here are the printables, both for the pizza and (separately) the crust:

CPK’s BBQ Chicken Pizza

3"x5" Cards | 4"x6" Cards | Full Page | Print

Prep Time: 2 Hours

Cook Time: 15 Minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Servings: 12

Ingredients

1 whole Recipe For Pizza Crust (mine Makes Two Crusts)
2 whole Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
½ cups Barbecue Sauce
Olive Oil, For Drizzling
Salt For Sprinkling
16 ounces, weight Fresh Mozzarella Cheese, Sliced Thinly
½ whole Red Onion, Cut In Half And Sliced Very Thin
Chopped Cilantro, to taste

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Salt chicken breasts on both sides, then place in an ovenproof dish. Pour BBQ sauce over the breasts and turn them over to coat. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until chicken is done. Remove from oven and cut into a fine dice. Set aside.

Increase oven temperature to 500 degrees.

Roll/stretch out one pizza crust. Lay it on a sheet pan drizzled with olive oil. Drizzle a little olive oil on the crust, then sprinkle on a little salt.

Spoon a couple of tablespoons of extra BBQ sauce on the crust and spread it evenly. Top sauce with half the sliced mozzarella. Sprinkle on half the diced chicken and thinly sliced red onion.

Sprinkle again with a little salt, then bake for 15 to 17 minutes, or until crust is golden brown and toppings are bubbly.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle on plenty of chopped cilantro. Cut into squares and serve immediately. Repeat with other crust and other ingredients, or save for another time.

Basic Pizza Crust

3"x5" Cards | 4"x6" Cards | Full Page | Print

Prep Time: 5 Minutes

Cook Time:

Difficulty: Easy

Servings: 12

Ingredients

1 teaspoon Instant Or Active Dry Yeast
1-½ cup Warm Water
4 cups All-purpose Flour
1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
⅓ cups Olive Oil

Preparation Instructions

***It’s best to make the dough at least 24 hours in advance, and 3 or 4 days is even better.

***Makes 2 crusts.

Steak with Burgundy Mushroom Sauce

Ree — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:37:22 +0000

I am in love with heavy, ingredient-rich steak sauces.

Marlboro Man, on the other hand, believes a good steak should stand on its own.

We’ll be seeking outside help for this fundamental life disagreement, but for today, I wanted to show you how to make this quick and easy mushroom sauce for whatever steak you feel like cooking tonight. A sirloin will work, or a skirt steak…or a fillet or a ribeye or anything else you might have languishing in your fridge. Whatever steak you decide to use, just know that the sauce will make it better.

Just ask Marlboro Man. He’ll tell you.

NOT.

Here’s what you need.

Slice up the mushrooms first—not too thick, not too thin.

Grab 3 green onions and slice them up into the middle/end of the dark green part.

Chop 3 or 4 cloves of garlic.

Begin by melting 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter in a large skillet.

Butter. Me love butter.

When the butter’s melted and hot, throw in the mushrooms, green onion, and garlic.

Stir it around and cook for a good couple of minutes.

Keep the ’shrooms on high heat until they’re golden brown.

Pour in a good cup and a half of red wine. You can use burgundy, you can use Merlot, you can use Cabernet Sauvignon…

Now stir it, reduce the heat to a simmer, and cook the mushrooms for several minutes, or until the mushrooms are cooked down and the liquid is reduced by half.

And here’s what it looks like:

I let this cook a little bit long (imagine if you will: Four children. A cattle ranch. All the laundry that entails) and the shrooms were basically liquidless. Without liquid. Devoid of liquid.

You know what I mean.

Anyway, if that happens, splash in just a tiny bit more wine (or a little beef broth) and stir it around for a minute or so. It’ll be just perfect!

Toward the end throw in some finely minced parsley.

Have you noticed lately that I’ve been sneaking in the standard, curly parsley a lot lately? The reasons for this are numerous:

1. It’s all my grocery store carries
2. No garden yet
3. It tastes just fine! Don’t ever let anyone ever tell you it’s just for garnish again. Mince it up finely enough and you’ll never know the difference!

It’s dark, divine, and delicious.

You’ll just have to trust me on this.

In a small skillet, fry up whatever kind of steak suits your fancy. This is a ribeye, but you can use everything from a good sirloin to a nice fillet. Honestly, you can even grill a burger patty.

Burgers + Mushrooms = TruLuv4Evr

Generously spoon mushrooms over the top…

This. This is it. This is love.

Yum!

I repeat: yum. Really lay on the mushroom sauce, too—perfect and wonderful.

Enjoy!

Steak with Burgundy Mushroom Sauce

3"x5" Cards | 4"x6" Cards | Full Page | Print

Prep Time: 5 Minutes

Cook Time: 15 Minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Servings: 4

Ingredients

4 whole Steaks (sirloin, Ribeye, Etc.)
½ cups Butter
1 pound White Mushrooms, Sliced
4 cloves Garlic, Minced
3 whole Green Onions, Sliced
1-½ cup Red Wine: Burgundy, Merlot, Cab, Etc.
Salt And Pepper, to taste
1 Tablespoon Butter
Fresh Parsley, Minced, To Taste

Preparation Instructions

In a large skillet, melt butter over high heat. Throw in mushrooms, garlic, and green onions and cook, stirring occasionally until mushrooms are nice and golden. Pour in wine and stir, scraping bottoms of the pan. Allow to cook for several minutes or until liquid is reduced by at least half. At the end, add 1 tablespoon butter and stir into sauce. Add parsley and stir together. Don’t be afraid to splash in a little more wine if needed.

Fry a steak in a separate skillet till medium rare.

Spoon mushrooms sauce over the top.

Le Creuset Winners

Ree — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:24:06 +0000

Here are the winners of Wednesday’s Le Creuset giveaway, along with their answers to the question “How close is your life now to where you once thought you’d be?”

#5679 Kris: “Pretty different. I moved from San Francisco back to my little home town in New Mexico. I’m a clergywoman. In a multi-ethnic marriage. Nope, didn’t plan a one of those. But I think I’d have become really bored with the life I had planned for myself.”

#13899 StacieB: “I gave up my ultimate dream job for love and am now a SAHM with two gorgeous boys! I’d say it’s different from how I’d imagined, but definitely AWESOME!”

#23863 KrisDot: “Well, I think I’m ‘mildly where I thought I’d be’. Things took a turn in our life about 5 years ago, but we’re getting back on track. Hey, life is unpredictable!”

Congratulations, winners! Contact prizes@thepioneerwoman.com to claim your loot.

Ingenuity

Ree — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:57:02 +0000

LE CREUSET UPDATE: The entry time is over and I’m determining winners. Will announce them ASAP—early Friday morning at the latest.

___________________________

I absolutely love the new post on the Tasty Kitchen Blog today. In it, you’ll find the most incredible assortment of recipes for everyday, homemade ingredients.

These recipes are for the home cook that either

1. Likes to use a little ingenuity and make most things from scratch

2. Is stranded in the country, desperate and alone, with no way to get to civilization

For reasons I won’t go into, I’m madly in love with the information contained in today’s Tasty Kitchen Blog post.

From homemade baking mix and homemade brown sugar (this has saved my bacon on more than one occasion)…

To homemade garam masala spice mix, mascarpone cheese, and Nutella…

To homemade pizza sauce and ricotta cheese, all the way to things like homemade wonton wrappers, marzipan, Kahlua, and mayonnaise…

You won’t believe how many storebought items you can whip up at home using ingredients in your fridge and pantry! I learned some wonderful new shortcuts.

And believe me, anything that doesn’t require my driving to the grocery store in town is a shortcut.

Here’s the post. I think you’ll love it:

Make Your Own Homemade Ingredients – Tasty Kitchen

And now…for more fun!

THE GIVEAWAY

Today, because I love ya more’n my luggage, I’m giving away three (3) Le Creuset 9-Quart Round French Ovens in this beautiful “Flame” color. You can do it all in this pot, guys—make doughnuts, make spaghetti sauce…and the color will make you happy.

To enter the contest, just answer the following question in the Comments section of this post:

“How different is your life now than how you’d always pictured it?”

Are you exactly where you always thought you’d be?

Are you mildly where you thought you’d be?

Or are you nowhere near where you thought you’d be?

Just share your assessment of how your current life compares to your former expectations and you’re automatically entered to win. (If you’d rather not answer, just shout out what you ate for breakfast today. I don’t wanna pry!)

THE RULES

One entry per person, please. Strictly enforced with a paddle.

No entries after 1:00 pm Pacific Time THURSDAY.

Winners will be randomly selected from among the entrants and will be announced Thursday night.

Good luck!

______________________________________

Giveaway sponsored by Pioneer Woman. For more information on how prizes and giveaways work, click here.

Funnel Cakes!

Ree — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:14:36 +0000

Funnel Cakes, for those of you who aren’t familiar, are a standard carnival treat. Made by pouring a thin batter through—get ready—a FUNNEL (get it?) directly into hot oil and fried until golden, then topped with plenty of powdered sugar and eaten while crisp and warm…wow.

Funnel Cakes instantly make the world a sweeter place.

I found a great recipe for Funnel Cakes on Tasty Kitchen. Today on the Tasty Kitchen Blog, I make them for you step-by-step:

Funnel Cakes on Tasty Kitchen

Monday Night Dinner: My Chicken Piccata

Ree — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:56:27 +0000

This is how you make Chicken Piccata when you’re out of capers and you have a pathological fear of cooking anything without adding heavy cream.

At least it’s how I make it. This is a really delicious quick and easy chicken-and-pasta dish with a strong lemon flavor and the decadence of cream. I had a similar dish at a restaurant in the big city over ten years ago, and on the drive back to the ranch I started plotting when I could make the dish for myself at home. But that’s how I roll. One meal over, planning for the next meal begins.

I love food. Have I mentioned this before?

(I love lemon-pasta dishes. Try my Baked Lemon Pasta this spring if you need a light, meatless meal. Delicious.)

Here’s what you need: chicken breasts, salt, pepper, flour, butter, olive oil, lemons, white wine, chicken broth, heavy cream, and parsley.

Have a pot of simmering water going. You’ll want to crank it up to a boil toward the end so you can cook the angel hair. (Angel hair cooks in a very short amount of time!)

You’ll want some nice, neat boneless/skinless breasts. I’m leaving these as is, but I often pound them a few times to slightly flatten. If the breasts are overly large, you can cut them in half. You just want nice, not overly thick, not overly huge chicken breasts.

Sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper.

If you could also sprinkle your counter with salt and pepper, I’d be most appreciative.

Now throw the flour onto a plate…

And dredge both sides of the chicken in the flour.

Now, melt half the olive oil and butter in a large skillet.

Then throw in two of the dredged chicken breasts.

Cook them for about three minutes on both sides, until the chicken is golden and lovely.

If the breasts are on the thick side, let ‘em cook a couple more minutes, but watch the oil and butter to make sure they don’t burn. As you can see, I let mine get a little dark—brown is good; black is not good. (You can also lessen the likelihood that the oil and butter will burn by cooking all four pieces of chicken together at the same time.

Remove the chicken from the skillet and put them on a plate.

Here’s what the skillet looks like.

Next, pour in a cup of dry white wine…

And a cup of low-sodium chicken broth.

Next, slice a couple of lemons in half…

And squeeze the juice right in.

Grab a whisk and whisk away, scraping the bits from the bottom of the pan. Cook this mixture for a few minutes and allow it to thicken and reduce.

Once it’s reduced, pour in the heavy cream.

Whisk it around and let it heat up for a couple of minutes. IMPORTANT: Taste the seasonings, adding more salt and pepper (and/or broth and cream.) The lemon taste really comes on strong, so be prepared to tone it down with some of the other ingredients. During this stage, I add and adjust like crazy, usually more broth and cream.

Throw in some chopped parsley and stir it together.

Drain the pasta and arrange a neat little mound alongside the chicken.

Then spoon the sauce over the top of the chicken and pasta…

Be sure to get the pasta…but no need to drown it. It’s pretty strong and tangy!

Top everything with a little parsley.

Mmm…yum.

That’s all that’s left to say.

Except this: Enjoy!

And here’s the handy-dandy printable:

My Chicken Piccata

3"x5" Cards | 4"x6" Cards | Full Page | Print

Prep Time: 15 Minutes

Cook Time: 15 Minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Servings: 4

Ingredients

4 whole Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
Kosher Salt To Taste
Freshly Ground Black Pepper, To Taste
4 Tablespoons All-purpose Flour
5 Tablespoons Butter
4 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 cup Dry White Wine
¾ cups Low Sodium Chicken Broth
2 whole Lemons
3/4 Cup Heavy Cream
Chopped Fresh Parsley
1 pound Angel Hair Pasta

Preparation Instructions

This is how you make Chicken Piccata when you’re out of capers and you have a pathological fear of cooking anything without adding heavy cream.

Have a pot of water simmering for the pasta.

If chicken breasts are overly thick, pound until slightly flattened. Sprinkle with salt and pepper on both sides, then dredge in flour.

Heat 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry two of the chicken breasts at one time until golden brown on both sides, about 3 minutes on each side; a little longer if breasts are thicker, a little shorter if breasts are thinner. Remove to a plate, then add the other 2 tablespoons each of butter and olive oil. Fry the other two breasts until golden, monitoring the oil/butter mixture to make sure it doesn’t burn. Decrease heat as needed!

After removing the chicken, have the heat on medium to medium-low. Pour in wine and chicken broth, and squeeze in the juice of two lemons. Whisk the sauce, scraping the bottom of the pan. Allow sauce to cook and bubble and thicken until reduced by about half. Sprinkle in a little salt and pepper as it’s cooking.

Reduce heat to low and pour in cream. Whisk together and allow to cook for a couple of minute until sauce thickens. Taste and adjust seasonings or other ingredients. Expect the sauce to have a real tang to it; counter it with a little more broth and cream if it’s too strong! Sprinkle in some chopped parsley and stir.

Right at the end, cook angel hair until al dente—do not overcook!

With tongs, place a medium-sized mound of pasta on a plate. Place a cooked chicken breast beside it, then spoon sauce over the chicken and the pasta. The sauce is strong, so no need to drown it. Sprinkle a little minced parsley over the top.

“In Case You Missed Them” Recipes…(and the Sushi Winners!)

Ree — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 03:11:55 +0000

I have a new Monday Night Dinner recipe ready to go in the morning, but first I wanted to announce the sushi winners (below) and share a few “in case you missed it” recipes.

Over on Tasty Kitchen, there’s a blog. It’s called—are you ready?—the Tasty Kitchen Blog. Try to contain your admiration at the wildly creative title.

Anyway, the ol’ Tasty Kitchen Blog is lots of fun. We have certain activities assigned to each day of the week, and they remain the same week to week. For example, every Monday my good buddy Erika interviews and profiles a different Tasty Kitchen member. On Wednesdays, Ms. Erika picks a theme and posts a rainbow of Tasty Kitchen recipes that fall into that theme.

Sometime I’ll tell you who Erika is. I have to get security clearance first.

And on Thursdays, the beautiful, wonderful Jaden from Steamy Kitchen drops by to surprise us with a how-to tutorial, an awesome recipe, or another wonderful delight.

As for me, every Tuesday I’ve been posting a new step-by-step recipe on the Tasty Kitchen Blog. And because it is my goal in life to share as many recipes with you as humanly possible before I croak (and because you might have missed them the first time around) here are the quick links to each recipe. WARNING: Don’t click on the pancake recipe unless you’re prepared to crave them all night long.

(NOTE: I am allowed to oooh and aaah over these recipes because they’re Tasty Kitchen recipes, submitted by the members there.)

Lettuce Wraps. Divine!

The Mushroom Soup. Beyond.

Butter Chicken. Wow. It may not be “authentic” Butter Chicken in the strictest sense, but boy oh boy…try it. You’ll die.

Well, not literally.

(Please forgive me) Cinnamon Bun Pancakes. Too twisted for words. Ridiculous. Illegal.

Delicious Thai Chicken Soup. This shouldn’t have tasted as good as it did. But it did. And it was unbelievably easy!

Coffee Toffee Bars. Sublime. Transcendent. Eat one with coffee ice cream and you’ll know what happiness is.

Uh…I’m hungry.

SUSHI GIFT BAG WINNERS

The winners of the sushi gift bags are:

#1678 Anna Cotton: “Mediterranean Food. Hummus, Falafel, kalamata olives, red peppers, onions, pita bread (not greek style) and Tahini Sauce. Yum!”
#2477 Painting Chef: “I would love to say something very sophisticated and worldly but the truth is that I just love Mexican food. Can’t get enough of it.”
#14658 Heidi: “Very tough… Currently, I think it’s Indian. Bring on the naan!”

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