Martha's Chicken Marsala

So this weekend my family came in town to visit and we had a wonderful time. We celebrated my dad's 60th birthday, so we had a lot of extended family and friends over at our house throughout the weekend. As much as I love having company over, and love love love my parents, it is always a little bit of a relief to have the house back to ourselves when everyone leaves. Since my husband was such a good sport about the whole family weekend deal, I decided I wanted to cook him something delicious tonight (well isn't cooking something delicious always my goal...?).

Anyway... one of our absolute favorite restaurants is Bella's in South Tampa. It is a chic and funky Italian restaurant with the best food, and my aunt's best friend owns it so we go often. They have this amazing chicken marsala there so I scoured the web to see if I could find something similar. The chicken marsala I have made in the past had a beef broth base but this one is more creamy, so I found this recipe on MarthaStewart.com and hoped it would come out close to Bella's. Success! It was SO delicious and easy, too! Brett loved it and said it really did taste like Bella's. The fresh sage smelled so good - I love using fresh herbs. I paired this with a side of roasted garlic red potatoes which is also similar to what we get at Bella's. This meal is great, I highly recommend it!
Some of my alterations - I forgot to put salt and pepper on the chicken.. didn't seem to make a difference. Also, I used baby bella mushrooms because they were on sale and I also omitted the shallot. I prefer leaner meat so I used chicken cutlets instead of breasts, which also cuts down on the cook time. The total time for this recipe took about 30 minutes from start to finish.

Creamy Chicken Marsala

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (6 to 8 ounces each) (I used cutlets)
  
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 10 ounces cremini mushrooms, trimmed and thinly sliced
• 1 shallot, minced
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh sage, plus more for garnish
• 1/2 cup sweet Marsala wine
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon butter

Directions

1. Place flour in a shallow bowl; season generously with salt and pepper. Dredge each piece of chicken in flour, shaking off excess.
2. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium. Add chicken, and cook until golden on the outside and opaque throughout, 8 to 10 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate, and cover with aluminum foil to keep warm (reserve skillet).
3. Add mushrooms, shallot, sage, and 1/4 cup water to skillet; season with salt and pepper. Cook, tossing frequently, until mushrooms are tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Add wine and cream; simmer over medium-high until slightly thickened, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat, and stir in butter; season with salt and pepper.
4. Top chicken with mushroom sauce, and garnish with sage.

Side Dish














Garlic Roasted Red Potatoes

Ingredients
4 red potatoes, sliced
3 tbsps of bottled minced garlic
salt and pepper
3 tbsps olive oil

Directions
Toss sliced potatoes in the garlic and olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper (I used very little salt). Bake in shallow pan at 425 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until potatoes are browned.

More Blondies

Can you tell I love blondies? They are just so delicious and always a hit. My parents came in town this weekend to visit and I wanted to have some baked goods on hand even though we were mostly going to be going out to eat a lot around town. My dad loves things with nuts, so I found this recipe on MarthaStewart.com that was a blondies recipe with walnuts. It came out delicious of course. Make sure you don't overbake these, they are way better when slightly underbaked and mushy. :)

Ingredients

Makes 16

• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for pan
• 1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brush an 8-inch square baking pan with butter; line pan with a piece of parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang on two sides. Butter paper.
2. In a large bowl, whisk butter and sugars until smooth. Whisk in egg and vanilla. Add flour and salt; mix just until moistened (do not overmix). Fold in 1/2 cup each chocolate chips and walnuts. Transfer batter to prepared pan; smooth top. Sprinkle with remaining chocolate chips and walnuts.
3. Bake until top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Set pan on a wire rack, and let cool completely. Using parchment overhang, lift cake from pan and transfer to a cutting board; cut into 16 squares. Store blondies in an airtight container at room temperature, up to 2 days.

Dijon Crusted Tilapia with sauteed veggies

I try to cook fish once a week or every other week. It's hard because I don't particularly like fish, and Brett loves it. Tilapia is one of the only fish I will eat because it's so light and not fishy tasting. I recently had Seabass at a restaurant though and loved it so maybe I will try that next time.
Anyway, I just threw this together one night because I had bought fresh tilapia and we planned on grilling it but it was pouring rain (which we needed because we are in a serious drought down here!). So I made up this random recipe and it turned out OK. Brett really liked it but I thought it tasted a little too dijon mustardy if that makes sense. He loves dijon mustard though so there you go. If you like it, you will like this recipe.


















Ingredients

3-4 tilapia filets
1/2 cup of dijon mustard
1 juiced lemon
1 cup panko breadcrumbs

Directions

Mix together dijon mustard and lemon juice. Dip filets in mixture on both sides, then bread with pank crumbs on both sides. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes, until panko is slightly brown and fish flakes easily with fork. You can also use extra dijon mustard for a dipping sauce.

Side dish
I made a quick side dish of sauteed vegetables while the fish was cooking. I simple sliced up yellow squash and zuchinni and sauteed it in some olive oil and italian seasoning.

Orange-Glazed Chicken

I saw this recipe first on Loves2eat's blog, which originally came from a Martha Stewart recipe, so I made it the other night and it turned out pretty good. It was very simple, it was fast, and it was tasty. Can you believe I had never cooked bone-in chicken before? That shows you how much of a rookie cook I am. I just always use boneless.. so this was a new experience for me but it went well. I made a side of instant mashed potatoes to go with it because we had a softball game to get to. I prefer Diner's Choice instant mashed potatoes.. and they are a good staple to keep in the fridge if you ever need a quick side and want some carbs. I am not an anti-carb person by any means.. potatoes are my absolute favorite side. :)
Anyway, here is the orange chicken and the recipe from Martha Stewart. I did, however, omit the salt because I try not to use a lot of salt when I'm cooking.

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 8 chicken drumsticks (about 3 pounds total)
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1/2 cup orange marmalade
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 475 degrees. On a large rimmed baking sheet, arrange chicken in a single layer; season with salt and pepper. Roast 10 minutes. Brush with half the marmalade, and rotate sheet. Continue to roast, brushing once more with marmalade, until chicken is browned and cooked through, 10 to 15 minutes more.

Quick Buffalo Chicken Quesadillas

When we have parties I love to make the Buffalo Chicken Dip from Kelly's blog (My Sweet Life) and it is always a hit. Brett is seriously obsessed with this dip and wants me to make it all the time. But since it's not really dinner-ish for your normal weeknight meal, I decided to make a quesadilla version of it which turned out pretty good! I've made it a bunch of times now and it's an easy meal to throw together when I'm having one of those busy nights. Sorry, they really didn't photograph very well, but they taste great!
























Buffalo Chicken Quesadillas

ingredients

1 can of Tyson shredded white chicken
2 tbs hot sauce (I prefer Texas Pete.. and you can add more or less depending on how spicy you like things)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 carton cherry tomatoes or chopped tomatoes
1 tbs cream cheese
Tortillas
Ranch dressing for dipping

Directions

Add drained can of chicken, hot sauce, and cream cheese to a pan on medium heat. Stir for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, on another medium heat pan, place tortilla and cover with cheese. Add chopped tomatoes to half of the tortilla. When chicken mixture is warm, add that to cheese and tomato side of tortilla. Then fold empty tortilla side over mixture side and flatten with spatula. When bottom is slightly brown/golden, flip carefully to other side until golden. Makes 2 quesadillas.

Happy Cinco De Mayo .... Mexican Wedding Cookies!

I love holidays, especially ones that give me excuses to make food! Today we had a faculty luncheon for Cinco De Mayo and all of the teachers were asked to contribute by bringing a food dish of their choice. I decided I would make Mexican Wedding Cookies because A. I love cookies and B. I am a wedding planner as my 2nd job. So it was perfect. I found this Paula Deen recipe and decided it seemed easy enough. Of course, I didn't have enough butter so Brett had to run out at 8:30 to the store to get me some.. but that's why I love him so much. :)
These cookies were easy to make and smelled SO good when they were baking. I have the last lunch of the day and by the time I got down there, all of them were gone! They were a hit.

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar, plus more for coating baked cookies
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting hands
• 1 cup pecans, chopped into very small pieces

Directions

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees F. Line cookies sheets with parchment paper.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar at low speed until it is smooth. Beat in the vanilla. At low speed gradually add the flour. Mix in the pecans with a spatula. With floured hands, take out about 1 tablespoon of dough and shape into a crescent. Continue to dust hands with flour as you make more cookies. Place onto prepared cookie sheets. Bake for 40 minutes. When cool enough to handle but still warm, roll in additional confectioners' sugar. Cool on wire racks.

Chicken Gyros

I was inspired by seeing some greek food on someone's blog (probably Ellysaysopa since I'm very into her stuff lately) and I wanted something quick and easy since Brett had a softball game later in the night.
I went over to Whole Foods which is right behind my school to see if they had pre-made tzatziki sauce and low and behold, they did! So this was a simple recipe -


Ingredients
Boneless Chicken Breasts cut into small pieces
Oregano
Juice from 1 lemon
Olive Oil
Cherry tomatoes
Red onion sliced
Tzatziki sauce
Naan (the thick pita things)

Cut chicken into small pieces and sautee in pan on medium-high heat with some olive oil. After chicken is almost cooked, pour in juice of one lemon. Sprinkle with oregano and any other spices of your choice.
Spread sauce on pita and add chicken, onion, and tomatoes. Enjoy!