Chicken Piccata

The first time I ever tasted lemony chicken piccata was on my second trip to Italy.  It was in Vatican city at a little Italian restaurant where our tour group ate the meal family style  I’ve enjoyed this dish every since.

Starts with some melted butter in a pan.  This will be used to cook the chicken. 

I dreged the chicken in some flour, salt and pepper.  Then into the pan to brown.

Once browned, they were taken out of the pan and set aside.  Time to make the sauce.

To the pan, with all the brown bits of flavour goodness, I added fresh lemon juice, white wine and capers.  Perhaps this isn’t a true piccata. I added a hint of dijon for some extra tang. I let it simmer for a bit, then added the chicken back to finish.

Once the chicken is cooked through, I always use a meat thermometer, the chicken is ready to be plated.  This instance, I paired with with some pasta.

Dinner is served! =)

Bacon Wrapped Chicken Breast

I think this attempt at cooking came after watching an episode of You Gotta Eat Here.  The host was at a restaurant where the chef was making stuffed chicken breast.  I thought to myself, I feel like making that.

So then the question became what did I have  in my fridge that I could use to make stuffed chicken?  Well, obviously I had chicken.  I also had some spinach, blue cheese and bacon.  I thought what great ingredients to use as stuffing!

Well, one thing about me is that as much as like to play girl scout and be prepared and ready with a plan, I do often times change my mind last-minute.  And that is what happened in this case.  Stuffed chicken turned into bacon wrapped chicken.

The first thing I did was slice the chicken breast in half and with a mallet, flatten it slightly. I then seasoned with salt and pepper and layered spinach leaves down.  On top of the spinach, layer some blue cheese.  Now the fun part, wrapping it all with bacon.  

Each chicken piece took about two strips of bacon, three if I was feeling generous and wanted full coverage.  Then it all went into the oven to bake until the chicken reached 165 degrees and a few minutes under the broiler to crisp up the bacon. Then you have it, bacon wrapped chicken breast. =)

Bacon Cheese Bread

I had a week of being slightly bacon obsessed.  Bacon made its way into almost everything I was eating.  See previous post as an example.  I decided to make a cheesy, bacon bread.

It began with caramelizing onions.  The key to caramelizing onions is to thinly chop, add a little oil, may sure not to  over crowd the pan and keep on a low heat.  I had mine going for about 45 minutes.  Probably could have kept them going longer, but I was getting impatient.  They had that great caramelized sweetness I enjoy, so I was fine with taking it off the heat.

I had prepped my bacon, taking about 8 strips and cooking them to a crisp and then sliced into little pieces.  I set them aside for a moment.

In a bowl, I mixed my dry ingredients.  3 cups of flour, 1 tbsp baking soda,  2 tbsp sugar and a pinch of salt.  In another bowl I have buttermilk and oil.  I also shredded some jalapeño havarti and set aside.

Now, I combined everything.

I lined a loaf pan with wax paper to keep the mixture from sticking and then poured the batter in.

Into the oven at 350 for about an hour.  Keep on eye on it.  You want it to be baked in the centre but nice and golden all around.

The finished product, cooled and then sliced.  Look at that bacon goodness.

Fresh out of the oven, it was cheesy and I loved the sweetness of the onion against the bacon saltiness.  Made for a great breakfast, toasted a little bit the next morning.  =)