Chicken and Mushrooms in a Garlic White Wine Sauce

*GASP!*

A blog update?! Can it be true?! We've been having a lot of yummy dishes lately, but I just haven't had time to get on my computer and give my blog some love. I started doing the P90X workout series a few weeks ago (today was Week 4, Day 5, to be exact), and I have to do it during Boy #2's naptime which is when I would normally update my blog. The things I give up for fitness. Using up precious naptime for exercising is starting to get old, but what am I going to do. Tonight I got an early start on the component of dinner that will take the longest, the husband and Boy #2 are watching a show about sharks (or "darsh" as my baby calls them) that my brother sent, and Boy #1 is upstairs showing King Koopa who's boss. I figured it was the perfect chance to get in at least one entry.

So, with that all out of the way, I've wanted to try this recipe for quite awhile, but I always ended up coming across it when I was doing no carbs. I guess technically I could have substituted the wine for chicken broth, but since the wine is part of the title of the recipe, I figured it was pretty necessary. One night last week we opened a bottle of white wine that neither the husband nor I were really excited about, so I figured it was a perfect time to try this. It's from one of my favorite blogs, skinnytaste.com. I don't know why people seem to have the idea that healthy food can't taste good. Goofballs.

Chicken and Mushrooms in a Garlic White Wine Sauce
Source: skinnytaste.com

8 chicken tenderloins, 16 oz total
2 tsp butter
2 tsp olive oil
1/4 cup all purpose flour
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
12 oz sliced mushrooms
1/4 cup white wine
1/3 cup fat free chicken broth
salt and fresh pepper to taste
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Preheat oven to 200°. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Lightly dredge in flour.

Heat a large skillet on medium heat; when hot add 1 tsp butter and 1 tsp olive oil. Add chicken to the skillet and cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes on each side, or until chicken is no longer pink. Set aside in a warm oven.

Add additional oil and butter to the skillet, then garlic and cook a few seconds; add mushrooms, salt and pepper stirring occasionally until golden, about 5 minutes.

Add wine, chicken broth, parsley; stir the pan with a wooden spoon breaking up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Cook a few more minutes or until the liquid reduces by half. Top the chicken with the mushroom sauce and serve.

*****

I love a dish that comes together quickly and easily. And it smelled fantastic while it was cooking. My parents always used to saute mushrooms in white wine, so the smell is a fond memory for me. Yum. Boy #1 isn't big on sauces (weird kid...but he's my weird kid, so I can say that), so I just gave him chicken, but the rest of us LOVED the sauce and the mushrooms. Boy #2 couldn't stop eating the mushrooms. he kept trying to steal them off my plate. I didn't have chicken tenderloins to use, so I just used chicken breasts and sliced them thin and into tenderloin-type pieces. This was really fantastic, and it's definitely something I'd make again! It looks really fancy (and tastes fancy), but it was super easy. Those are some of my favorite things!

The original blog post suggested serving this with baked rice and peas, so I gave it a go. I have found my new favorite way of cooking white rice. I don't know if I've shared that I have issues when it comes to cooking white rice, and her method was super easy and really good. Boy #1 isn't usually a rice fan, and even he ate it this way.

(Please forgive my less than stellar pictures...I'm having some issues with the speedlite on my camera that I can't quite figure out, so I haven't been able to use it.)

Wine...how do I love thee, let me count the ways

On our recent vacation we spent a week on California's Central Coast. Several years ago--four I think it was--we vacationed with the husband's family in Monterrey, CA. Boy #1 was almost 18 months old, Boy #2 was no where near existing yet. The husband and I came up with the genius (insert heavy, dripping sarcasm for the word "genius") idea to drive home to Phoenix via the Pacific Coast Highway. We had driven it from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo when we were engaged and loved it. If you've never driven it, you really should because it's gorgeous. However, we somehow failed to take into account the extra time it would add to our drive and that we had a toddler with us who didn't care at all about driving along the ocean and the beautiful views it provides. Yeah...the last few hours of our trip were pretty miserable. We cut over from the PCH through Paso Robles which, unbeknownst to us at the time, is wine country. We passed vineyard and winery after vineyard and winery...with a screaming toddler in the car. Oh how we wanted to stop! But somehow we figured our presence would not be appreciated with said screaming toddler. The next time we were back in the area, I was pregnant with Boy #2 so wine tasting was out yet again. So this time we wanted to make it happen.

Originally we looked into doing some kind of tour or having a limo take us around so we didn't have to worry about who was going to drive us home. Instead we decided we'd just go to a couple instead of making a day of it. My in-laws agreed to watch the boys for us, so off we went. We hadn't really researched where to go; my friend Jess is a wine distributor, so I had texted her for suggestions, and she gave me some she liked and some to avoid. We ended up just stopping at random ones we came across.

Our first stop was Zin Alley. The husband used to not be a fan of zinfandel, but lately he's come around to them. We were a bit leery when we got there because there were no other cars and we weren't sure where to park. So we made our own parking spot and went inside. It turned out that the guy behind the counter pouring the wine was the grower as well. He told us all about the grapes and his vineyard. It's completely dry farmed (no irrigation other than what nature provides) and he uses no pesticides. We sampled a couple different zinfandels, including some from his son's winery further south. The bottles were a bit pricey, but it was hands down one of the best wines we've ever had, so we splurged. He also doesn't advertise or enter his wines into contests...he basically just makes wine because he loves it. How cool is that?! We were pretty pleased with our first stop and continued on our way.

Oh, and he had this sign on his door which cracked me up:

And a picture of the vineyard:

We continued on down the highway and saw a sign for two nearby wineries that were close together. Perfect, we thought. We turned and drove and drove and drove. Actually it wasn't that long but we did question whether we were making a good choice having veered off the main highway so far. Turns out we did.

Our second stop was Rotta Winery. It was one of three original wineries in the Paso Robles area and has been around since 1908. There was a gorgeous patio in front of the tasting room (actually Zin Alley had a gorgeous patio, too) and it was bordered by cool wine barrels:

There were two other couples in the tasting room, and it turned out they were all from AZ too. Weird coincidence, eh? Rotta had 12 wines for us to try...awesome! If I'm paying a tasting fee, I want it to be worth my money. ;) Our tasting started with a chardonnay, then a zinfandel rose (why are rose wines so hard to find?!??!), then it moved to reds. We had some tasty wines. We ended up getting two bottles. One was their Trinity Blend--a cab, merlot, and cab franc blend. In looking at the list now, I don't remember what the other one was we got. Cut me some slack, I had sampled 12 wines there and five at the previous winery...I was feeling pretty good. I think it was a Cabernet Franc, which normally is used as just a blend and not on its own, but it was really tasty.

The original sign we saw off the highway had said there was another nearby winery, so we followed the signs to Venteux Vineyards. It was yet another gorgeous looking winery. I don't remember how many tastes we got here, but we did leave with a bottle of a taste cuvee. The girl doing the pouring was really knowledgeable, too. Did you know that Cal Poly has a wine degree? Kind of makes me want to go back to school. She also gave us a map/brochure of the area, so that helped us quite a bit.

This was the bathroom at Venteux...yes, I took a picture of the bathroom because I thought it was super cool.

At this point we were getting pretty hungry, and I needed to eat something quick. We looked on the map we had just received and saw we were near the town of Templeton, so we headed there. The husband found somewhere for us to eat on the GPS, so we made our way there...and then found out they had closed for a break between lunch and dinner about 20 minutes before we got there. Oops. So instead we headed to a tasting room across the street because we were there, they were open, and it didn't seem that any other place right around there was. They featured wines from Clavo Cellars (and thankfully had a little snack paired with each wine, otherwise I might not have survived much longer). There were quite a few that we sampled (have you noticed that I remember less and less about each progressive place? Good thing the husband was driving and not me! I am not the drinker I used to be...), and once again the girl pouring the wines was very friendly and knowledgeable. We ended up getting a bottle of syrah to take home. The tasting fee was $5 each or waived if you bought a bottle; I think the bottle we got was $12 or $15, so we figured for a few more dollars we might as well go home for something.

We stopped for lunch after this, which I really needed. The girl at Clavo had recommended a seafood restaurant nearby, so we found our way there and had a bite to eat. We figured it was probably time to head back after that, but on our way home we passed another winery we figured we'd stop in and try. I had it in my head it was Lone Wolf (which made me laugh thinking about this scene from The Hangover), but it's actually Grey Wolf Cellars. There was another group in there that had consumed way more wine than we had by that point, so the employee kind of had her hands full with them. The husband and I got a nice picture taken of us there, but that was about the highlight.

We ended up coming home with quite a few bottles of wine. Some we are saving for special occasions, others we shared with the husband's family while we were still in CA. It was such a fun afternoon, and such a fun experience to try so many different wines and hear and learn about winemaking in the area. I won't say wine tasting is the main reason we want to go back to the area in future years, but it's definitely a perk of a Central Coast vacation!

Pappardelle with Quick Bolognese Meat Sauce

I think I have one dinner to post from last week still, but I figured I might as well be current and then go back to that when I have a chance. It was pretty tasty so I definitely want to share it.

I had to do a bit of dinner rearranging this week. The husband and I recently joined a gym, and he suggested we meet there tonight after he left work so I could show him around a bit and we could work out together. I already had a crockpot meal planned for tomorrow night and wasn't sure if I could come up with another with ingredients I had on hand. I remembered a package of Trader Joe's pappardelle pasta in the pantry with a recipe on the back of it that sounded easy, and I had everything on hand. So I decided we'd have that tonight, I'd make it up in the afternoon, then throw it in the crockpot on the warm setting so dinner would be waiting for us when we got home. I'll tell you below whether or not it worked!!

Trader Joe's Egg Pappardelle with Quick Bolognese Meat Sauce

8 oz. TJ's Egg Pappardelle pasta
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 lb. ground beef
1/2 cup onion, chopped
2 Tbsp garlic, minced
1/2 cup red wine
2 cups marinara sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a large saute pan over moderate heat. Add beef and saute until lightly browned and crumbly. Add onions and garlic and saute until onions are transparent. Drain fat and return mixture to pan. Add red wine and marinara. Stir and simmer 10-15 minutes to blend flavors. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Meanwhile, cook pasta according to cooking instructions. Drain well, add pasta to sauce. Heat pasta and sauce together on low heat 1-2 minutes. Sprinkle with parmesan.

*****

I kind of broke the Pantry Challenge because I had to go buy wine for this, but I figured that was easier than coming up with a different dinner. Plus we'd drink it anyway, so it's not like I was buying it just to use for this recipe!! I had a jar of TJ's marinara sauce in the pantry which worked out great.

I was kind of hesitant of how this would turn out. When I tasted it before putting it in my slow cooker I wasn't sure about it. The pasta tasted really egg-y to me. It ended up coming out okay. It sat in there on the warm setting for 2.5 hours. There could have been more sauce, but I don't think it was overly saucy to begin with, so it may not have been just from the crockpot drying it out. This worked pretty well for dinner to be ready when we got home, then all we did was heat up some bread, throw some salad mix in bowls, and heat up some frozen broccoli.

I don't think I'd go out of my way to make this again, but it's something I'd make again if I had everything on hand and needed a quick dinner fix, kind of like I needed tonight.

No picture, I was starving by the time we got home and couldn't be bothered with finding a camera. Oh, and can I just say I'm so fortunate that I get to stay home?! I don't know how I'd get dinner on the table at a decent time if the husband and I were both getting home late like we did tonight!

Cassoulet

I have to say that I'm not really excited about dinner tonight. It sounded good when I read the recipe last week, so I put it on my menu plan for the week, but now I'm not excited. It just sounds too winter-y to me and not overly appealing for a 100+ degree day. But, I don't really want to come up with a new plan, so I'll just have to suck it up and go with it.

This is a recipe from the cookbook my message board put together. Just about every recipe I've made from it has been good, so I'm sure this will follow suit, I'm just not excited for it.

Cassoulet

1 pound chicken sausage, cooked
1 can kidney beans
1 can garbanzo beans
1 can black beans
1 can tomato sauce
3 medium carrots, thinly sliced
2 small onions, sliced, rings separated
1/2 cup red wine
1 Tbsp brown sugar
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
1-1/2 tsp dried thyme

To prepare the sausage, halve lengthwise and cut into 1/4 inch slices. Rinse and drain the beans well to remove as much salt as possible. Combine all ingredients into a bowl, mixing thoroughly. Transfer to an ungreased baking/casserole dish. Cover and bake at 375 for 60-70 minutes or until carrots are tender.

*****

I guess it's early enough that I still have time to come up with a new dinner idea. The idea of having my oven on for that long isn't appealing either. I'm so torn. I really want to try this, but I just don't know if today is the day.

Orange Roughy in Garlic Butter Recipe

Last night the husband and I decided to do our usual Friday night mini date night where we have dinner after the kids go to bed. We weren't really hungry, and I forgot to get out some chicken to defrost, so we ended up getting Little Ceasar's pizza. See, it is always our universal back-up plan! Today was hairy, to say the least. It was like the boy was replaced with some three year old monster that looked just like my sweet boy. He was in bed at 6:30! Man alive. We had decided earlier today to have another mini date night tonight, so once the baby goes to bed, it's date night time! I got out some orange roughy fillets I had in the freezer for us to have but wasn't sure what to do with them. I found this recipe on RecipeZaar.com and thought it sounded tasty and easy--one of my favorite combinations! (Spell check is saying that 'combinations' isn't a word, but I swear it is, right?!)


Orange Roughy in Garlic Butter
Recipe #83463

1/2 lb orange roughy, cut into fillets
3 tablespoons butter
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon white wine
1/4 cup onion, cut into rings
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 450. Rinse fillets in water, pat dry with paper towels. Set aside. Melt butter in a small saucepan. Add garlic, and white wine, stirring until all is mixed together. Spray a small square glass baking dish with cooking spray. Sprinkle both sides of fish with salt and pepper, and lay fish fillets in the dish. Lay onion rings on top of fish, and pour garlic butter mixture over everything. Bake at 450 for 12-15 minutes, until fish flakes when you pick at it with a fork.

*****

I'm not sure what we're going to have with this. I think I'll see if I have some orzo in the pantry and make creamy parmesan orzo or an orzo feta salad recipe I came across recently. If we don't have orzo then I have no idea and will have to come up with something I guess.

*****

Mmmmmmm...this was some good fish! It was so easy to prepare, and the flavor was really good. I ended up making the parmesan orzo as a side. I should rename this to "dinner in beige" because there was absolutely no color on the plate!

Pastor Ryan's Bolognese Sauce

I've been eyeing up this bolognese recipe from The Pioneer Woman's website ever since it was posted. I knew I had to make it post haste and try its deliciousness, so I threw it on my menu plan for this week. I love, love, love homemade pasta sauces, and this one looks amazing. Pioneer Woman has never steered me wrong, so I'm assuming this will be awesome. Although I guess technically it's not one of her recipes, but I still assume it will be good. The post for the recipe on her website has great pictures of the process, if you want to check them out.

Ryan’s Bolognese
1 1/2 cups grated carrots
1 large red onion, diced
1/2 cup olive oil
2 pounds ground beef
2 tablespoons dried oregano flakes
2 tablespoons dried basil flakes
1 6-ounce can tomato paste
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 to 2 cups red wine
2 tablespoons Worcestershire
salt
pepper
2 28-ounce cans whole tomatoes
1 cup milk
Fresh Parmesan cheese

Heat oil in a large Dutch oven or skillet over medium heat. Add grated carrots and onions and cook for a few minutes. Make a well in the center of the mixture, then add in the ground beef. Cook for a few minutes until brown, gradually stirring it into the carrot mixture. Throw in oregano and basil. Use fresh if you have it; if you don’t, it’s fine.

When the meat is browned and combined with other ingredients, make another well. Add tomato paste and let it heat. Add garlic and stir to combine. Make a well in the center of the mixture and add red wine. Stir together. Add Worcestershire and stir. Add canned tomatoes. Finally, pour in milk, stir, and let simmer for 30 minutes to 2 hours—however long you need.

Serve with pasta and a generous sprinkling of Parmesan cheese.

*****

Did I mention I love homemade pasta sauce? I've pretty much stopped buying the jarred kind because it's really so easy to make your own and you can control what goes into it. And it just tastes so much better. The husband has another hockey game to watch tonight, so it will be nice to get this sauce going in the afternoon so all I have to do at dinner time is throw in some pasta to boil.

There's a bread recipe on PW's website also by Pastor Ryan that looks amazing that I think I'll make to go along with this. Either that or Barefoot Contessa's Garlic Ciabbata Bread which is without a doubt the best garlic bread I have ever had. My mouth starts watering just thinking about it. I think I'll go with Pastor Ryan's and make it a Pastor Ryan/Pioneer Woman dinner all around.

*****

This was yummy sauce. I added in two cups of wine, and I think one cup would have been enough. My sauce only got to simmer for one hour because I got a later start on it than I had planned (see my reason for not making the bread!), and I really would have liked it to simmer longer. I was worried for awhile because it seemed too liquidy (is that a word? Not sure...watery, soupy, etc.), but it thickened up in the end. I hate watery sauce so I was a bit apprehensive. But it all worked out. This was definitely good sauce, but I don't think it was the end all be all of spaghetti sauce. I'd make it again because it was tasty and fairly easy to throw together. Oh, I ended up using kitchen shears to cut up the whole tomatoes. Had I been thinking, I would have cut them up while they were in the cans instead of once they were already in the pot. And this made a TON of sauce. We ended up having leftovers for dinner on Sunday night because there was so much of it. So we had Saturday dinner, Sunday dinner, and I probably put about half of the pot into the freezer today. I'd say if you didn't want to eat this for days or freeze it or serve it to a crowd, you could easily cut it in half.

Mmmm...sauce simmering on the stove:


Just to keep things interesting, I took a picture of dinner on the boy's frog plate:

Mock Coq Au Vin

This past Saturday some of my friends threw me an amazing baby shower!! All my friends that came were so generous and definitely spoiled new baby. Even though Will (the boy...I'm tired of using "the boy" all the time when talking about him) is still pretty young, it amazes me how small baby clothes are. This baby's going to be born at a different time of year than Will was, so we got some really cute winter/cold weather outfits for him to sport. Actually I'm doing a load of baby laundry right now. I heart baby laundry detergent. The pre-baby-arrival laundry loads are the ONLY form of laundry I enjoy. The clothes smell so sweet from the baby detergent and they're so tiny and cute! Once they're covered in spit up and poop, not so fun.

Anyway, my friend Jen B. was one of the friends that hosted the shower. She did an amazing job with the food spread--I wish she'd post the recipes for some of the stuff on her blog. Well, the finger sandwiches anyway. I'm digressing again. Her present was one of my favorites. She and her son went with Will and me to register at Babies R Us, and while we were standing around waiting to get the scanning gun, she was looking at the bookshelf they have up front with parenting books and stuff like that. Of course she honed in on the one cookbook they had displayed and brought it over for us to look at. We were both in love with it, so of course I registered for it. And, being the super duper friend that she is, that's what she got me for my gift. The book is called, "The One-Armed Cook" and is full of parenting tips (especially for new parents) and recipes that are easy to prepare when your kid/baby needs to be held the whole time you're supposed to be making dinner. Cool, huh? And the recipes in it are really yummy sounding.

So, I was flipping through it and came across this recipe and thought it would be perfect for tonight because 1) all I needed to buy for it were the mushrooms, 2) it's a crockpot recipe, and 3) the husband and I are going to a "tour" of the hospital where I'll be delivering so it's something that could be ready ahead of time for us to eat. So far it smells awesome!

Mock Coq Au Vin
1/3 cup red raspberry jam
1/4 cup red wine
3 Tbsp soy sauce or tamari
1 tsp prepared mustard
1 8-ounce package sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup frozen chopped onions
12 skinless chicken drumsticks
2 Tbsp cornstarch
2 Tbsp cold water
3 cups cooked rice

In the bottom of slow cooker, place the jam, wine, soy sauce, and mustard, stirring well to mix. Add mushrooms and onion to the mixture, stirring well to mix. Add the chicken; stir to coat with the sauce. Cover and cook on low for 5 hours.

Place cooked rice on a serving platter. Remove chicken from slow cooker and arrange on top of rice; cover to keep warm. Turn slow cooker to high. In a small mixing bowl, combine the cornstarch and water until smooth. Add the cornstarch mixture to sauce, stirring well to mix. Cook an additional 15 minutes until sauce thickens. Spoon sauce over chicken and rice and serve.

*****

I only made some slight modifications. For one thing, I used Dijon mustard, and I added in a few teaspoons worth of chopped garlic. I also skipped the real onions and just shook in some onion powder. It was almost naptime, and I didn't want to take the time to cut them up myself. And my package of chicken only had eight drumsticks, but I think that should be fine. I'm excited to try this. It smells and looks really good. I just hope Will eats it. We're going to have it with the rice (but no platter...we're a buffet style kind of family...plus a platter is one more dish to wash) and either carrots or peas, whichever I happen to pull out of the freezer first.

Veal Marsala

Okay, I'm back from San Diego and trying to get back into the swing of things. We got home Thursday, but the weekend was spent celebrating my grandma's 90th birthday. Needless to say, things have been pretty darn crazy the past few days. Now this week I'm going to try and get everything back to normal and on a regular schedule. Figured I'd get up before everyone else and get a jump on the day. So far I've sat at the computer...there's a ridiculously large pile of laundry waiting for me downstairs that I'm trying to avoid.

Anyway, we had this one night for dinner before I left for CA. We waited and ate after the boy was in bed because frankly two year olds don't need to eat veal (although when he was a baby I saw Gerber veal baby food...seemed a bit ridiculous). I know veal is super controversial, but it's just so darn good. My brother has a theory that it's so good because it's so wrong to eat it. I have to agree. I try to just savor the deliciousness when I eat it and not think about where it came from.

I had found veal cutlets for super cheap and had them in the freezer. I checked allrecipes.com for a veal marsala recipe. I'd only ever made veal once or twice before, so it wasn't anything I wanted to wing. There were a few recipes I found but one especially seemed super easy. I modified it a bit, but I'll add that at the end.

Veal Marsala
1 1/2 pounds veal scallops, pounded to 1/4 inch thickness
salt and pepper to taste
3/4 cup all-purpose flour for coating
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup dry Marsala wine
1/2 cup chicken stock, divided
2 tablespoons butter, softened

Season veal with salt and pepper to taste; dredge in flour to coat. Shake off excess flour. Melt 2 tablespoons butter and olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet. When foam subsides, add veal 3 to 4 pieces at a time and saute for 2 to 3 minutes each side, until browned. Transfer meat to a plate.

Pour most of the fat off from the skillet; add wine and 1/4 cup of the stock and bring to a boil over high heat for 1 or 2 minutes, scraping the bottom and sides of the skillet.

Return meat to skillet; cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, basting meat with pan juices occasionally. Transfer meat to a platter.

Add remaining 1/4 cup stock to skillet and bring to a boil, scraping bottom and sides of skillet. When sauce has reduces to a thick, syrupy consistency, remove from heat and season with salt and pepper to taste. Stir in 2 tablespoons softened butter and pour sauce over meat.

*****

I like mushrooms with my marsala, so I added in a package of sliced mushrooms after the meat was done and before the 1/4 cup stock at the end. I let them saute a bit before adding in the stock. I think I ended up adding in a bit more marsala and stock because the mushrooms took some of the sauce. I honestly don't remember...pregnancy brain is hitting me hard this time.

It turned out really yummy. I had three veal cutlets to make, and the husband ate two of them. I was going to get all fancy and make roasted garlic mashed potatoes to go with it, but I was lazy and we just had baked potatoes instead.

I have no idea what else we had for dinner that week, so I guess this is the only catch-up recipe I'll post. I did a ham in the crockpot, but it was pretty uneventful. The ham was good, but the way I did it wasn't anything special.

Chicken Bourguignon

I have to say that I am SO EXCITED for this dinner. My awesome sister-in-law Tracie sent me this recipe four years ago when they were living in Switzerland for a year. She got it from a cookbook they bought once they moved there and said it was one of their favorites. It kind of got lost in my email recipe folder, and I just recently came across it again when I was organizing four years worth of recipe emails. Hey, at least I finally got around to organizing!! Don't judge me.

Anyway, I read the recipe and started drooling all over my keyboard. I vowed once chicken legs went on sale I'd make it. Then what happened? Chicken legs were on manager's special the next time I went grocery shopping. Woo hoo!! I love when the stars align in my favor. I've had them in my freezer for a couple weeks now and was going to make this last week, but then we were all sick. I know, I know...why did I hold on to them for so long when I was so excited to make it? I have no answer. But I'm making it tonight and CANNOT WAIT!

Chicken Bourguignon

4 chicken legs w/ thighs attatched
salt and pepper
1 Tbsp butter
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1 cup cubed thick raw bacon
1/2 bottle white wine
1 small can whole tomatoes, cut up
4 cups chicken broth (add enough to almost cover chicken)
1 whole branch of rosemary
1 whole branch of thyme
2/3 small jar of pearl onions in vinegar, drained,washed
chopped parsely to garnish (optional)

Salt and pepper the chicken. Saute in large skillet with butter till brown. Remove chicken and keep warm. Throw away fat.

Saute bacon in same pan till cooked well. Add mushrooms and stir. Add wine and simmer till liquid is reduced by half.

Add tomatoes and juice from can and let cook 5 minutes. Add broth, and herbs and let slowly boil. Rinse onions and add to sauce. Place chicken back in sauce and simmer slowly for 1 - 1 1/2 hours. Remove herb branches, season with salt and pepper if needed. Garnish with parsely (optional). Serve with steamed rice.

*****

Oh how I wish I had a Le Creuset dutch oven to cook this in!! I don't think my 3.5 quart enamel pot will do the trick. Sigh. Life will go on, I suppose.

Have I mentioned how excited I am to try this???

Pan-Fried Tilapia with White Wine and Capers

I've fallen behind again...what else is new. The husband and I have had a date weekend...grandma kept the boy starting Friday afternoon through yesterday evening! It was awesome. I didn't cook Friday night or last night, this was our dinner on Thursday. It's a Weight Watchers recipe since we're still trying to each drop a few pounds. I copied it off the WW website before I quit my membership.

Pan-Fried Tilapia with White Wine and Capers
1/4 cup white wine, dry
1/4 cup tomato(es), seeded and chopped
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 Tbsp capers, drained
1 medium garlic clove(s), minced
1/2 tsp dried basil
1 1/2 pound raw tilapia, four 6-oz pieces
1/2 tsp table salt
1/4 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 sprays cooking spray
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp light butter
2 Tbsp parsley, chopped
1 medium lemon(s), cut in wedges (optional)

Combine first 6 ingredients, stirring well with a whisk; set aside. Sprinkle fillets with salt and pepper. Dredge fillets lightly in flour, and coat both sides of fillets with cooking spray. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add fillets; cook 3 minutes. Reduce heat to medium; turn fillets, and cook 3 minutes or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork. Remove from pan. Add wine mixture to pan; cook 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; stir in butter until melted. Spoon wine mixture over fillets; sprinkle with parsley. Serve with lemon wedges, if desired. Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 fillet and 2 tablespoons sauce).

*****

This was pretty good. I love tilapia because it's a really mild fish, and it's super easy to cook. I liked the sauce for this, but I think next time I'd reduce the amount of capers. The flavor of them kind of overpowered the other components of the sauce. It's one I'd make again. We have tilapia pretty often, so I like to have a good rotation of recipes for it.

Stuffed Chicken Breasts

My menu for the week is downstairs, so I'm having to do all of this from memory! Not easy for those of us afflicted with Mommy Brain! Monday night we had stuffed chicken breasts. They were so yummy!! The recipe calls for goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and fresh thyme, but I used feta, prosciuto, sun-dried tomatoes, and basil. I love stuffing chicken...you can do so much with it!

Sun-Dried Tomato Stuffed Chicken Breasts
2 Tbsp sun-dried tomatoes, without oil, minced
2 oz. soft-type goat cheese
1 tsp thyme, chopped
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, 4 4-oz breasts
1/8 tsp salt, or to taste
1/8 tsp black pepper, or to taste
1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1 cup wine, dry, white
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 cup canned chicken broth, fat-free
1 Tbsp canned tomato paste
1 Tbsp parsley, chopped

IN a small bowl, stir together sun-dried tomatoes, goat cheese, and thyme. Using a sharp paring knife, cut a horizontal slit through the thickest part of each breast, creating a pocket. Be careful not to cut all the way through. Stuff each chicken breast with 1/4 of the cheese mixture. Season with salt and pepper and dust with flour.

Spray a large nonstick skillet with olive oil cooking spray and warm over high heat. Add chicken and brown well. Remove and set aside. Add white wine to pan and boil until almost all evaporated.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, stir together cornstarch and 2 Tbsp chicken broth until smooth. Whisk cornstarch mixture, reminaing chicken broth and tomato paste into white wine. Return chicken breasts to pan. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook over low heat until chicken is cooked through, about 10 minutes.

Sun-Dried Tomato Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Folks, this is one of my absolute favorite dinners!! We haven't had it in forever, so I'm really excited. Some friends were supposed to come over for dinner tonight, but we never heard back a final confirmation from them, but I'm making it for us anyway. Surprisingly (after you've tasted this), this is a Weight Watchers recipe! After our holiday binge eating I'm trying to do more WW recipes and really make sure we get back to eating healthy.

Sun-Dried Tomato Stuffed Chicken Breasts
2 Tbsp sun-dried tomatoes, without oil, minced
2 oz. soft-type goat cheese
1 tsp thyme, chopped
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, 4 4-oz breasts
1/8 tsp salt, or to taste
1/8 tsp black pepper, or to taste
1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1 cup wine, dry, white
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 cup canned chicken broth, fat-free
1 Tbsp canned tomato paste
1 Tbsp parsley, chopped

IN a small bowl, stir together sun-dried tomatoes, goat cheese, and thyme. Using a sharp paring knife, cut a horizontal slit through the thickest part of each breast, creating a pocket. Be careful not to cut all the way through. Stuff each chicken breast with 1/4 of the cheese mixture. Season with salt and pepper and dust with flour.

Spray a large nonstick skillet with olive oil cooking spray and warm over high heat. Add chicken and brown well. Remove and set aside. Add white wine to pan and boil until almost all evaporated.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, stir together cornstarch and 2 Tbsp chicken broth until smooth. Whisk cornstarch mixture, reminaing chicken broth and tomato paste into white wine. Return chicken breasts to pan. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook over low heat until chicken is cooked through, about 10 minutes.

*****

Mmmmm...yum, yum! I can't wait to have this. I need to stick my wine in the fridge so I can enjoy some while I cook. This is a really versatile recipe because you can use just about anything for the stuffing. I'm skipping thyme and using fresh basil because I have some. I normally buy some kind of herbed goat cheese, but the store I shopped at this week only had plain. I've also used prosciuto that I've had on hand, and that was really good. Capers would probably be a yummy addition as well!

On the side we're going to have Creamy Parmesan Orzo, which is one of my favorite side dishes. I think I have some frozen peas I'll heat up as well. Oh man, I'm so excited for dinner! Oh, and the sauce you make is so super good. Did I mention I'm excited?!

Jen's Beef Surprise

Tonight is another Jen B. creation!! I've been dying to try this ever since she sent me the recipe. I almost made it one night a couple weeks ago, but I didn't have any sour cream. I was so bummed. It's still cloudy and gray in Phoenix, so a dinner like this will be so good tonight!

Jen's Beef Surprise (as written by Jen)
1) In a medium sized bowl, mix flour and seasoning with 1-2 lbs. of cubed beef stew meat. Seasoning includes: salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne pepper (to taste for each). Each piece should be well coated with flour mixture.
2) Brown meat mixture in enamel pot with canola oil (2-3 tablespoons)
3) Remove browned meat mixture from pot; leave brown bits on bottom
4) Brown diced onion, celery (about 2 stalks), and 1-2 tablespoons of minced garlic with approx. 2 tablespoons of butter and salt to taste until onions are translucent and mixture is soft
5) Deglaze pot with 1-2 cup chicken stock and 2 cups red wine
6) Add 1 tablespoon of minced ginger, 1 tablespoon of worsteshire, 1 bay leaf, and a pinch of the following dried herbs: parsley, marjoram, thyme, rosemary (to taste). Add a little more salt and pepper to taste.
7) Cook COVERED on Med-Low heat for 2 hours (burner gas level between 2 & 4 on my stove), checking every ½ hour to make sure the liquid is sufficient. Liquid should be approx. 2 inches around pot. Add more chicken stock, water, and/or red wine to add more liquid if needed (add to taste—depending on what you like).
8) In a separate bowl, make mixture of 1 cup milk, 2-3 tablespoons of flour, and ½ cup of sour cream. Mix together with a wisk until combined. Ladel some of the hot liquid from the beef mixture into the milk mixture to thicken (1-2 ladels). Once liquid is incorporated, return all liquid to enamel pot.
9) Heat through to thicken for approx. 5-10 minutes on MED heat on stovetop.
10) Serve with egg noodles.

*****

Doesn't this just sound SO GOOD?! We're going to have it over rice instead of noodles, but that's all I'm doing differently! I bought some asparagus last week that I need to use up, so I'll roast that to go along with it. YUM. I can't wait for dinner!!