Chicken Pomodoro

It's National Pasta Day and I'm pretty excited about it.

THIS is the dish the husband often gets mixed up with the picatta. I think by now he just doesn't even ask. He just eats what is put in front of him. This never makes leftovers either. No matter how much I fix. So, in true big family fashion, I make a lot.



What's more annoying than sitting at the table waiting for mom to finally sit so everyone can eat?
I know!
Everyone sitting at the table waiting for mom to finish taking her blog pictures. I had 10 eyeballs staring me down as I completed the last of my photos for this entry. Please enjoy.

INGREDIENTS
3 large chicken breast sliced long ways
1 package of linguine
seasoning (salt n pepper, garlic salt, watevs you like to season yo poultry with!)
olive oil
5-6 crushed garlic cloves
3 large roma tomatoes
1 bunch of FRESH basil
fresh grated Parmesan cheese

Get your water boiling for your linguine noodles and prepare your pasta while you are doing the following:

Get your pan going with 2-3 tbsp of olive oil. Heat it up on medium heat.
While that's heating, wash and slice longways your chicken breast.
Put into the pan once it's ready and sprinkle your seasoning on them. Cook them all the way.

While the chicken is cooking, chop up your tomatoes, mince the garlic (a press helps for this or you can use minced garlic from a jar, just make sure it's fresh. None of the dried stuff and no canned tomatoes.)

Once the chicken is cooked, remove from the pan and place on a plate to rest. Add your garlic, tomatoes and about 2 more tbsp of olive oil. Cook this down.

Slice the chicken breast up and cut your basil into ribbons.

Once your noodles are cooked and strained return them to the pot. Do not let them get cold. Add your sliced chicken, the tomato-garlic mixture and the fresh basil and toss.

Garnish with the Parmesan cheese!

Creamy Fish Picatta

This has got to be one of my favorite dishes to prepare. I normally, well I've always made this with chicken. This was the first time I ever made it with fish. It was delicious. When I make it with chicken, it is usually referred to by my husband as Chicken Pomodoro. Which is a different meal for a different day. My youngest refers to it as the chicken with yummy peas. As she is making reference to the capers. I never cook with peas (yuck) unless I am making Belizean potato salad. So yes, they are the yummy peas.

This was accompanied by garlic mash and feta dill tomato roasted asparagus.

I used tilapia. Like I said, this dish can be used with chicken as well. I understand that tilapia is a junk fish and fish snobs all over are gasping right now reading this. So, feel free to dismiss my blog while sipping your coca-cola and eating your trans-fat fries and big mac or deep fried "closed on Sunday" chicken sandwich that is just so healthy for you. The way I look at it, eating junk fish is better than eating no fish at all. Don't judge.



Ingredients for fish/chicken coating:
Adobo seasoning
Tony's Herb seasoning
flour
white wine
olive oil

Ingredients for creamy picatta sauce:
1/2 qt heavy cream
1 tbsp butter
juice of one large lemon
1/2 cup capers
6 thinly sliced mushrooms

Here is the holy grail to getting your seasonings to stick to your meat. PUT THEM ON FIRST BEFORE THE FLOUR.

In a large skillet pour enough olive oil to coat the pan and place on medium heat.
Put your fish in a glass dish after rinsing and patting dry. Next drizzle with olive oil and white wine.
Seasonings are next. Just enough to cover the fish. Easy does it. Fish absorb seasoning quickly. Dredge in flour.




When pan is ready, place in the pan and lets get going!

***To keep your fish from falling apart you want to always make sure you give it enough time to cook on each side. Approximately 5 minutes on each side, and always use a flat spatula to flip.



Once fish is cooked, take out of the pan and place in an oven safe pan and keep warm...in the oven...on warm setting.



Picatta Cream
Turn down the temperature of your pan to low now.
Using the crispy bits left over in your skillet, add a tablespoon of butter and melt. While this is melting add the lemon juice, capers, and, mushrooms. Slowly add the cream. Stir this till it slightly thickens. Place on top of fish and eat up!



This is enough for about 8 fish.

The potatoes I boiled with the skin on because there are a lot of vitamins in the skin. Once boiled I then peeled the skin. Added butter, skim milk, salt, pepper, and minced garlic. Mashed up.

 

The asparagus was tossed with tomato, dill, garlic salt, feta cheese, and olive oil and placed in the oven on the broiler setting for about 10 minutes.

If you try this, let me know how yours turns out!

Falling Back Into The Groove

Well, hello October and hello there reader. Autumn is not only my favorite season, but it also felt like the right time of year to celebrate the renewal of my blogging adventure.

I originally started blogging here over half a decade ago, and then other things took precedence and I lost the time to keep up with it. I always had all intentions of getting back to it, I just always seemed to have other things get in the way, but here I am now.
A clean slate. Just like the trees in the fall. They shed their leaves, shaking loose of all that is dead and then the sweet wait for renewed growth.
October is going to be a good month. Here is just a small list of what will be happening under my roof this month.