Chicken Piccata Toss

Dan & I love chicken piccata, and this recipe was even better! It was easy besides cutting the chicken, we will definitely be making this again!

Chicken Piccata Toss
Source: Rachel Ray



Ingredients

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/3 pounds chicken breast tenders, cut into 1-inch pieces
Salt and pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons butter
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 shallots, chopped
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white wine
1 lemon, juiced
1 cup chicken broth or stock
3 tablespoons capers, drained
1/2 cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 pound penne rigate pasta, cooked to al dente
Chopped or snipped chives, for garnish

Directions
-Heat a deep nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Add a tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil and the chicken to the pan. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Brown chicken until lightly golden all over, about 5 to 6 minutes. Remove chicken from pan and return the skillet to the heat.

-Reduce heat to medium. Add another tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil and 1 tablespoon butter, the garlic and shallots to the skillet. Saute garlic and shallots 3 minutes. Add flour and cook 2 minutes. Whisk in wine and reduce liquid 1 minute. Whisk lemon juice and broth into sauce. Stir in capers and parsley. When the liquid comes to a bubble, add remaining 1/2 tablespoon butter to the sauce to give it a little shine.

-Add chicken back to the pan and heat through, 1 to 2 minutes. Toss hot pasta with chicken and sauce and serve. Adjust salt and pepper, to your taste.

Modifications: For 2 people, we used 1/2 pound of chicken & about 2 cups of pasta. This way there was enough sauce & no leftovers! If you do this, you will want to use less capers, also :)

Source: Rachel Ray.

Lemon Pasta Bake

This recipe was a great summer pasta recipe! It was really light and tasted even better as leftovers. We got the recipe off the Pioneer Woman's website...I would definitely make this again. It was super easy too!



Baked Lemon Pasta
-1 pound thin spaghetti (I used fusilli)
-1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) butter
-2 tablespoons olive oil
-2 cloves garlic, minced
-Juice of 1 lemon
-Zest of 1 lemon
-2 cups sour cream (I used low fat)
-1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, more to taste if desired
-Plenty of grated Parmesan cheese
-Flat leaf parsley, chopped
-Extra lemon juice

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cook spaghetti until al dente.
In a skillet, melt butter with olive oil over LOW HEAT.
When butter is melted, add minced garlic.
Squeeze lemon juice into the pan. Turn off heat.
Add sour cream and stir mixture together. Add lemon zest and salt. Taste, then add more salt if necessary.
Pour mixture over drained spaghetti and stir together, then pour spaghetti into an oven safe dish.
Bake, covered, for 15 minutes. Then remove foil and bake for an additional 7 to 10 minutes. (Don’t bake too long or the pasta will dry out.)
When you remove it from the oven, squeeze a little more lemon juice over the top.
Top generously with Parmesan cheese, then chopped parsley.
Give it a final squeeze of lemon juice at the end

Source: Pioneer Woman Cooks.

Pomegranate Mojito

This is a fun balcony happy hour drink! Plus it has to be healthy because it has pomegranate juice in it right?



2 oz pomegranate juice
2 oz white rum
1 tbsp sugar
4 oz club soda
6 mint sprigs
cracked ice

1 -In a cocktail shaker, combine all ingredients except the mint and shake well.
2 -Muddle the mint in the bottom of a cocktail glass & add sugar.
3 -Strain the pomegranate mixture into the glass with the muddled mint, and serve.

Recipe found on this blog. Enjoy!!

Cheesy Chicken Skillet

This recipe was surprisingly good & super easy! We made the entire thing in about 25 minutes!



Cheesy Chicken Skillet
Ingredients

-2 cups of pasta
-3/4 lbs chicken, cut into pieces
-1 can Healthy Request cream of chicken soup
-1 (15 ounce) can diced tomatoes with Italian seasoning
-1 cup of skim milk
-1 tsp black pepper
-1/4 cup shredded mozzarella

Cook the pasta as directed. Heat oil in 10 inch skillet over medium high heat. Add chicken & cook thoroughly. Reduce heat to medium; stir in soup, tomatoes, milk and seasonings. Stir in cooked pasta. Cook about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally until bubbly & heated through. Sprinkle with cheese. Reduce heat, cover & let stand about 5 minutes.

**Modified to use less milk, & Italian style tomatoes instead of adding seasoning separately

Source: Lauren's Kitchen Blog

Homemade gnocchi

This is a recipe I tried a while back & it was HARD to make. But I wanted to give it a shot. They totally fell apart, but I'd like to try them again sometime.





I have no idea what recipe I used, but I didn't have a ricer and I used a cheese grater instead. I definitely need to attempt this one more time!