Tuscan Lemon Chicken and Grilled Panzanella

The husband got home today from his business trip so I planned a nice dinner for the family.  After seeing a few great menu ideas on my friends blog last week I knew exactly what to make.  Tuscan Lemon Chicken and Grilled Panzanella, both Ina Garten recipes, and both very highly rated on the Food Network's website.  Not surprising since most of the Barefoot Contessa's foods get rave reviews.

I highly recommend giving both these dishes a shot.  I also highly recommend you let the chicken sit in the marinade for a solid 24 hours.  The flavor is amazing!  In addition, using a flattened chicken may look pretty cool (and a butcher will do for free at your grocer), but it would be much easier to use an already cut up chicken. Makes serving much faster and less messy.  If you do opt for pieces of chicken instead of a whole flattened chicken, I'd opt for bone-in with skin on so the marinade has some extra stuff to soak in to versus using boneless skinless breasts.  But... the flattened chicken is an attention getter so give it a shot.

Regarding the panzanella (basically veggies and bread salad with dressing), the flavor has a kick and both my kids ended up eating a few pieces.  The recipe calls for a ficelle, which is basically a really skinny baguette.  The ficelle I bought wasn't as skinny as I hoped, so I had to slice the loaf lengthwise and then slice as directed in recipe.  Otherwise the bread pieces would have been much too large.  My friend Michele also likes to add crumbled feta to the salad

Much to my surprise, the panzanella kept well and I was able to eat some of the leftovers for lunch today. And the leftover chicken's flavor tasted even better the second day. This is a must try for your next nice family meal or dinner with friends.

Flattened chicken ready for seasoning.

Sitting in the marinade and covered with plastic wrap.  I flipped the chicken 2-3 times over the 24 hour marinating time. 

I placed the chicken on our grill and used the pan to help press it down.  Its better to use a heavy brick wrapped in foil though.  The veggies were put on the grill with about 10-15 minutes remaining on the chicken. 

Chicken ready for eating!  It looks a little beat up due to the skin tearing, but tasted fantastic.

The finished panzanella salad served warm.

Snickerdoodles

My husband claims his all-time favorite cookie is the Snickerdoodle.  I do love a chewy snickerdoodle on occasion, but I'll typically never pick one over chocolate chip or oatmeal... and it isn't a recipe that I've got on regular rotation in the kitchen.  In fact, I'm not sure I've made snickerdoodles since Tony and I were dating.  Today he went on a business trip and ironically I saw an article about snickerdoodles.  I figured it was a sign to make a batch of these cookies for him.

The prepared dough prior to being wrapped in parchment and placed in the freezer for an hour to chill, prior to baking.

And the finished cookie.  Perfectly baked, nice and tender, and a secret ingredient in the sugar/cinnamon mix took these cookies up a notch on my favorites list.  Sweet with a hint of savory. Making snickerdoodles again did remind me of making them as a child which was fun, and Blake loved them.

These ain't your momma's snickerdoodles.  Well, if in fact they are hers, good for her and I wish I had seen her recipe sooner.

I made eight cookies today (as a test... and all eaten in an hour), and refrigerated the remaining dough wrapped in parchment and sealed in a ziploc bag.  I'll bake the rest on Tuesday when the husband returns!

Snickerdoodles, courtesy of www.dinneralovestory.com blog

Preheat oven to 400°F. In a large bowl using a hand mixer, mix together:

1 c. softened unsalted butter
1 1/2 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a separate bowl, sift together:
2 3/4 c. flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Gradually mix in the dry mixture to the wet mixture until it’s all blended. Wrap dough in parchment paper and chill for about one hour in freezer.

Remove dough from freezer and form round balls of dough the size of small walnuts. Roll balls in mixture of 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon sea salt.

Bake for 8 minutes and cool on a rack. Makes 5 dozen 2-inch cookies.

Pretzel Chicken and a John Daly

I saw a blog article discussing a killer chicken dish which involved pretzels.  Yup, pretzels.  The dish is served at an NYC restaurant called City Bakery and has a loyal following.  To make the dish work, you must buy thick, hard, sourdough pretzels.  I found large pretzel bites and thought they worked fine.  The end result was a nicely flavored chicken with a perfectly crunchy shell.  I did find that even though the pretzels I used had salt, most of it was lost in the blender, so you may find that you need to add a touch of salt to the finished chicken to maximize the flavor.

The kids loved this meal and so did we.  We'll definitely make it again!

The chopped pretzels ready for chicken...

The mustard sauce...

And the cocktail to go with dinner on a hot, sunny day...  An 'Arnold Palmer' (half ice tea/half lemonade), but the grown up version...using sweet tea vodka and lemonade!  This is technically called a 'John Daly'. Yummmmm.  This is a sweet drink, but you can play around with the vodka/lemonade ratio and can also add a splash of club soda to help cut the sugar.  Oh, and random thought... A Shandy is lemonade and beer - also a good summer drink but not something you'll drink all night.

Pretzel Chicken, courtesy of City Bakery in NYC and Food & Wine Magazine
1/2 lb hard pretzels, coarsely crushed (4 cups)

1/2 c. canola oil
1/2 c. whole-grain mustard
2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1/4 c. water
3 Tbsp red wine vinegar
Salt and freshly ground pepper
6 large skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

Preheat the oven to 400°. In a food processor, pulse the pretzels until coarsely ground; you should have coarse chunks and fine crumbs. Transfer to a large, shallow bowl.

Wipe out the food processor. Add the oil, whole-grain and Dijon mustards, water and vinegar and process until smooth. Season the dressing with salt and pepper.

Pour half of the dressing into a large shallow bowl, add the chicken breasts and turn to coat. Dredge the chicken in the pretzel crumbs and transfer to a rack set over a rimmed baking sheet. Bake in the upper third of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until cooked through. Slice the chicken and serve warm or at room temperature with the remaining mustard dressing.

Homemade Pizza Dinner

We've been craving homemade pizza for dinner.  The problem?  I haven't had time to go to Trader Joe's and I'm not a huge fan of Pillsbury pizza crust in a can.  But when I was at the grocery store on Sunday I walked past this pizza dough in the freezer aisle.  I love The Essential Baking Company, so had to give it a shot!

Only downside to the product?  Aside from thawing instructions, there are no baking directions, and I found no suggestions on their website - even though the label says to check the site out.  So I opted for a 400 degree oven and checked on the pizza after 10 minutes, then every few minutes after that.

To make the sausage topping, I removed the casings from some Isernio's sausages I'd previously thawed and then browned the meat.  (To remove casings you can either slice off the end of the sausage and squeeze out, or slice down the length of the sausage. Super easy.) 

I then sauteed and carmelized sliced red onions in a little olive oil and butter.

Rolled out the dough on a floured surface and then placed on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. 

The finished product!

I give two thumbs up to Essential Baking's pizza dough, but the lack of directions was annoying.  If you can't get to Trader Joe's for their dough, give this brand a shot next time you're at the grocery. YUM!

Steak Salad and the Week

I cut open this avocado before dinner and it was too perfect to mash up for guacamole.  So instead I changed up our planned dinner and made a big dinner salad with sliced BBQ steak (leftover from the night before - love Costco and buying a pack of steak with one steak too many - just for this reason!), chunks of avocado, slices of red onion, fresh cracked pepper, Gorgonzola crumbles and a vinaigrette by Briannas (my favorite brand of salad dressings) served over mixed greens.  I put a little too much Gorgonzola on my salad (which is almost impossible for me), but it still turned out great and was a nice change of pace for dinner.

Whats your favorite dinner salad - whether planned or last minute?

I've mentioned this before, but I typically try to plan our weeks worth of dinners each Sunday.  I have an ongoing grocery list posted on the fridge, and all week we add staples we need or write down dinner ideas for the following week.  On Sundays I go to the store and stock up, trying to avoid needing another trip to the store for the rest of the week.  I used to go to the store at least three times a week until two months ago when I made this change. 

To make my once weekly trip to the store more beneficial, I quickly sift through the Sunday newspaper coupons.  I clip ones I could use that day and will save some that I may be able to use for the near future (an upcoming holiday, baby shower, etc).  I am in no way a coupon freak, but I don't understand why I wouldn't use them if a coupon is good for an item we're always buying.  As a side... I have almost saved as much as I have spent at QFC in the past five months (you can see your accrued saving at the bottom of their receipts...).  Yes, this means I buy a lot of store brands, but I'm also using coupons for name brand products.

An example week for us - this week:

Monday - BBQ'd ribs, corn (on sale so bought for today/tomorrow) and blueberry crumble (leftover ribs for Charlotte/my Tuesday lunch)

Tuesday - steak dinner, corn, rice (3 big steaks from costco, eating only 2 between the four of us)

Wednesday - steak salad (using 1 leftover steak), bread toasted in oven with some butter/seasonings

Thursday - homemade pizza with sausage, carmelized red onions and basil, side of green salad (leftovers for my lunch on Friday).  Trying out a new pizza dough found in the freezer section, made by Essential Baking!

Friday - Tony & Jodi out with friends for dinner - but BBQ'd chicken, steamed broccoli and rice for the kids (buy one package of chicken breasts, get another package free. Use remaining package for Saturday dinner) 

Saturday - pretzel coated chicken with dipping sauce, corn, green salad (leftover chicken for Sunday lunch?)  I'll have the pretzel recipe on the website once we've tried it out!  Stay tuned!

Cucumber Pickles

I've been craving those tangy, crunchy mini cucumbers that local asian restaurants (Wild Ginger, Monsoon, etc) serve as an appetizer.  Each bite is filled with a refreshing flavor.  Ironically, I gave my mom a cookbook that contained the recipe for Wild Ginger's pickled cucumbers and had to give it a shot.

Small pickling cucumbers can be hard to find, but Trader Joe's, Whole Foods and even Costco usually sell them.  Typically they'll be sold in a prepackaged plastic bag, and you get somewhere around one pound.  I bought mine at Costco and they came in a 1.5lb package.  I plan to use the unused cucumbers for slicing and dipping in hummus...

The recipe is fairly straight forward. Its only time consuming because you have to let the sliced cucumbers sit for an hour while salt helps extract some of their juices.  Otherwise, you combine the ingredients and let them sit!  They only keep for 3-4 days max, so make sure you can eat them or give some away! 

Cucumber Pickles, courtesy of Wild Ginger

1 lb small pickling cucumbers

2 tsp coarse salt, divided

2 Tbls distilled white vinegar

2 Tbls sugar

5 Tbls hot water

4 slices fresh ginger, peeled

4 shallots, peeled and quartered

Slice cucs into ¼” rounds and combine with 1 tsp salt.  Cover and let sit 1 hour.  Rinse cucs with fresh water and drain well.

Combine remaining tsp salt, vinegar, sugar and hot water.  Stir to dissolve.  Pour over cucs and toss with ginger and shallots.  Let sit at least 1 hour.  Cucs will remain fresh 3-4 days if refrigerated.

The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie

I am forever in search of the perfect chocolate chip cookie.  It must be moist, chewy, slightly crisp on the outer edges, not overloaded with chips, and have a good cookie base flavor.  I also don't want to bother with a small, dinky sized cookie.  I have tried recipes on the back of both fancy and store brand chocolate chips and chunks.  I have tried recipes from old cookbooks, magazine clippings, and food blogs.  I've tried cookies with oatmeal added, banana puree, and even applesauce.  Nothing quite hits the spot, though you'd never know that based on how fast they are all consumed.

After reading a recent article about the top chocolate chip cookies in the Seattle area, I realized the panel of judges in the write-up have a similar goal as me.  Finding the perfect cookie.  But where to go...

Thats when I thought about the spots that serve my fave cookie.  Specialty's Cafe & Bakery is at the top of my long list.  Their cookies are very extra thick, moist, and usually warm from the oven.  But how do I achieve this cookie at home, and probably make an entire batch for around the same price as one cookie at a Specialty's shop?  This is when some serious experimenting happens.  A great thing for cookie lovers in my house. A bad thing when you screw up and need to adjust ingredients.

If you attempt to Google and find a specific restaurant's recipe, you'll get all sorts of answers or guesses.  I wasn't going to make a few hundred batches to decide which was best.  So I started with a tried and true recipe, a few hints and tips I found on the web, and went from there...

My fave cookies from the cafe are typically more square than round making me think they are cut off a big flattened, rectangular bar of dough...

I chilled my dough for two hours before popping it in to a 400 degree oven for five minutes.  Ooops.  This trial was a major failure.  Cookies as flat as can be and super soggy in the center.  And of course I tried a taste and they were actually good for a flattened disaster. (Actually, I couldn't stop eating them - same with the husband)

Next up, I added more flour and lowered the oven temperature...  Now we're getting closer!

And then I lowered the oven temperature a bit more and chilled the dough overnight and baked without parchment paper.  I think I'm on to something.  Thicker than usual cookies that were chewy yet firm on the edges.  They still aren't to my ultimate cookie hopes, so stay tuned for future installments of my ultimate chocolate chip cookie recipe!

Do you have an ultimate chocolate chip cookie recipe that you'd like to share?  If so email it to me and I'd be happy to feature it on the site.  Happy baking!