I love Chicken Piccata, it’s a simple recipe that really delivers on flavor. Plus, I usually have the ingredients needed on hand! Cooking Light’s latest issue has a recipe for Chicken Piccata that browns the lemons to intensify the lemon flavor while taking away some of the “bite.”
This recipe would go great with a side of green beans and/or mashed potatoes. You could also add the chicken piccata over some egg noodles or other pasta, like I have with my past recipe for Chicken Piccata with Spaghetti.
Just because the weather is warming up, doesn’t mean I’m willing to give up pasta. But pasta with a traditional meat sauce is a bit … heavy on hot days. This recipe from Cooking Light is a lighter take while still giving me my carb fix.
The recipe uses fennel two ways to make use of both parts of the plant. The bulb is sliced and sauteed, adding a delicate flavor to the dish. The fronds (the feathery leafy part) is used as a garnish to give another faint taste of anise to the meal. The stalks (the part that looks like celery – not used in this recipe) can be saved and used when making stock — what a useful plant!
Somehow I have never had the classic French dish Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic. With my love of garlic, this seems like a huge oversight! I adapted this recipe from a Cooking Light recipe.
The garlic cloves are simmered in a broth until tender and work to lightly perfume the chicken. If you’re a garlic lover like me though, I suggest spreading the softened cloves on to crusty pieces of bread — they turn into a wonderful paste that is oh so tasty!
Because of the large number of cloves you need for this recipe, I suggest just buying pre-peeled cloves – it will save you a ton of time, making this an easy weeknight meal.
Ingredients:
2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts and thighs
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped
40 garlic cloves, peeled
1 1/4 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 cup dry white wine
24 (1/4-inch-thick) slices diagonally cut French bread baguette
Mussels are one of my favorite quick meal options — they take just 5 minutes to cook! This recipe for Smoky Portuguese-Style Mussels infuses the broth with turkey kielbasa and smoked paprika before steaming the mussels in the broth, resulting in a really flavorful dish. The broth is really spectacular, so be sure to serve this dish with a sliced baguette. (Note: the whole dish takes about 30 minutes to cook.)
Ingredients:
2 teaspoons canola oil
4 ounces chopped turkey kielbasa
1 1/4 cups chopped onion
8 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 pound red potatoes (I used assorted baby potatoes)
There are some really fantastic sounding recipes in this cookbook. Just look at how I tabbed this book trying to decide which to make for this post!
Included in the cookbook, which features 120 recipe, are:
Forbidden Rice with Hearts of Palms, Mushrooms and a Jalapeno Vinaigrette
Bay Shrimp with Cannellini Beans dressed in Shallots and Cayenne Pepper
Red Miso Short Rib Braise
Lemon Poppy Seed Bundt Cake
Unique Lemonade concoctions like Peach Ginger, Pear Basil, and Cantaloupe Sage
With descriptions like that, I have to point out that these recipes are surprisingly unfussy and manageable to make at home. I decided to make the salmon because 1. it sounds delicious and 2. I have never poached fish before and I love trying out new techniques.
This recipe takes about 40 minutes from start to finish so it is great for a special weeknight dinner (or as a mid-week pick me up!) I changed the ingredients ever so slightly so to see the original, check out the cookbook, available in stores now!
As the weather cools down, I want more and more comfort food. I gravitate towards pastas, all forms of a warm meal, and food with a little spice to it to keep me feeling toasty, like this Cedar Plant Fired Salmon.
Carrabba’s must know I’m not alone. They have recently launched a new Fire Finished menu and I was lucky enough to do a tasting of it! Last week, I headed over to a local Carrabba’s and tried the following:
Fire Roasted Mushrooms stuffed with sausage, red bell peppers, fennel, sauteed onions, brioche breadcrumbs, artichoke hearts, and romano cheese.
Photo courtesy of Carrabba’s Italian Grill
Cedar Plank Fired Salmon first pan-seared then topped with a crab cake and fire-roasted on a cedar plank then finished off with a lemon butter sauce. Served with roasted asparagus mushrooms and red bell peppers.
Photo courtesy of Carrabba’s Italian Grill
Bistecca Ardente: Center-cut sirloin wood-grilled then topped with blue cheese, roasted tomatoes, and basil.
Photo courtesy of Carrabba’s Italian Grill
Rigatoni al Forno: Rigatoni tossed in housemade marinara sauce, romano and mozzarella cheese and topped with Italian fennel sausage, mozzarella and fresh ricotta cheese finished off in a wood-burning oven.
Photo courtesy of Carrabba’s Italian Grill
Nonna Testa: Penne pasta with wood-grilled chicken in a housemade pesto cream (basil, pine nuts, walnuts) with spinach and zucchini, topped with mozzarella and baked in a wood-burning oven.
Creme Brulee prepared with Madagascar vanilla bean topped with torched turbinado sugar, whipped cream, and strawberries.
Photo courtesy of Carrabba’s Italian Grill
The fire-roasted mushrooms were a great start to the meal. I love fennel so I was happy this flavor came through. The mixture is lightly stuffed in the mushrooms so they remain nice and light. Really tasty!
The cedar plank-fired salmon was one of my favorite dishes. I loved it so much, I tried to recreate it! The salmon was perfectly cooked and the crab cake was a great addition. The cedar flavor shown through without being overpowering. Check out my recipe below to make at home.
The Bistecco Ardente was so juicy, especially for being cooked to medium-well. The blue cheese can be a tad overpowering though so I scooped a bit off so that I could get the taste of the steak, tomatoes, and basil as well.
The Rigatoni al Forno gave me more of my beloved fennel flavor. I liked that the pasta on top got crispy from the wood-burning oven, but would’ve liked more sauce to complement the pasta.
Nonna Testa was another of my favorites. Man this was good. The wood-grilled chicken was really juicy and flavorful and there was the perfect amount of pesto cream on the pasta (lightly dressed so it’s not overly heavy). I love spinach and zucchini so I couldn’t have been happier with this dish!
Now I’m pretty sure I’ve never met a creme brulee I didn’t like but this version was really really tasty. The vanilla flavored custard was so creamy and I loved the light touch of torched sugar to give a very thin crust to the dish without overpowering the custard with too much sugar.
Needless to say, I left super full and really happy with the tasting. The staff at the Springfield Carrabba’s were so attentive and helpful too! Thanks for a great meal!
The managing partner, Ernie, even took the time to explain all of the dishes and answer any questions we had. When I told him I was planning on doing a giveaway so that my readers could try this tasty menu, he gave me a copy of the Carrabba’s Italian Grill Cookbook (paid link) for myself and one to give away! The cookbook does not include recipes for the fire finished menu (because it’s so new) but many of Carrabba’s signature dishes, including Chicken Bryan, Mama Mandola’s Sicilian Chicken Soup, and Margherita Pizza are included within its pages. So special thanks to Ernie for the cookbooks!
In addition to the cookbook, I am also giving away a $25 gift certificate to Carrabba’s so that one reader can try out some of the menu for themselves. Details after the recipe!
Note: It is very difficult to make smaller portions of crab cakes because crab meat is usually sold in 1 pound containers. I made about 9 crab cakes and saved the leftovers for dinner the next night. If you are unable to do that, you can purchase pre-made crab cakes from your local supermarket.
Ingredients (serves 2):
CRABCAKES (makes 9, only use 2 and save the rest for up to one day):
1 tablespoon butter
1 red bell pepper, finely diced
1/2 small onion, diced
1 lb jumbo lumb crab meat
1/3 cup panko
1/2 cup mayo
1 tablespoon Old Bay seasoning
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
the zest of one lemon
CEDAR PLAN FIRED SALMON
1 tablespoon butter
2 8-oz salmon fillets
salt and pepper, to taste
1 cedar plank board
LEMON BUTTER SAUCE
1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter, divided (I used ghee, a clarified butter)
Snow cones (or snow balls, depending on where you are from) are synonymous with summer, boardwalks, and childhood. Shaved ice topped with a flavored sugar syrup are a refreshing treat on hot days. Francis Ford Coppola Winery offers Skylite Snowball Cocktail Syrups that pair perfectly with Coppola wine offerings for adult snow cones! I was sent a bottle of Francis Ford Coppola Chardonnay to try out this fun treat and paired it with the Skylite Pink Grapefruit Syrup to make Coppola Chardonnay Pink Grapefruit Snow Cones and Frozen Cocktails!
One of my earlier posts on this blog was a chicken piccata recipe. I used to make chicken piccata probably once a week, because it was one of the only recipes I knew! But since I’ve committed to learning how to cook, I haven’t made it in probably 2 years (there are so many recipes I have to try, I rarely go back to my previous go-to recipes). So I decided to revisit the recipe with a few tweaks.
I’ve seen commercials for Land O Lakes Sauté Express products and just loved the idea. The Sauté Starters, made with butter, olive oil, and spices, are an easy way to cook up chicken or fish effortlessly. The Sauté Express Sauté Starters are specifically made for cooking on a stovetop and are portioned out in one ounce servings, enough to cook two chicken breast or fish fillets. So I thought the Garlic & Herb Sauté Express would be great in chicken piccata.
Because I use the same pan to both make the sauce and cook my chicken, my piccata is browner than most you’ll find in restaurants. So I apologize for the presentation. But trust me, the flavor makes it worth it!
Ingredients (serves 4):
¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon onion powder
¼ teaspoon ground pepper
1 lb chicken tenderloins (about 8 pieces)
2 squares Garlic & Herb Sauté Express, divided
1 tablespoon olive oil, divided
1/3 cup white wine (whatever you have around the house)
I am excited to announce that I will be a Perfect Protein Blogger for the summer, to help promote a book called The Perfect Protein: The Fish Lovers Guide to Saving the Oceans and Feeding the World. Written by Andy Sharpless, the CEO of Oceana, and Suzannah Evans, the book discusses how protecting, maintaining, and consuming wild seafood can help to fight both famine and obesity globally.
I am only a few chapters in to the book and already find it fascinating. The general idea behind the book is to try to eat seafood, but to try to eat WLLS: Wild, Local, Little, and Shellfish. Many supermarkets, such as Whole Foods, label their seafood which makes sticking to these more sustainable choices a cinch. But even without the labels, you can still find sustainable options at your local grocer.
As a food blogger, I immediately went to the back of the book, where there are 21 sustainable seafood recipes from some of the nation’s top chefs. They all sounded delicious, but I decided to start off my Perfect Protein posts with a recipe that is simple but packs a ton of flavor into the dish: Sam Talbot’s Thai Coconut Mussels. I love making mussels because they cook up so quickly. This recipe takes about 30 minutes from start to finish. (For another take on mussels, check out my recipe for Mussels in White Wine Garlic Sauce)
I altered the recipe a bit to make it into a meal for 2 instead of an appetizer. I also subbed in some ingredients for what I could find. All of these ingredients can be found in Whole Foods.
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons peeled and grated fresh ginger
4 large garlic cloves, minced
1 shallot, finely chopped
2 tablespoons lemongrass
2 tablespoons unsweetened coconut
1 pound mussels, debearded, scrubbed well, and washed clean
1/3 cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon sambal (chile-garlic paste)
1 (13.6 oz) can coconut milk, divided
2 tablespoons torn cilantro leaves, stems discarded
Blueberry Mushroom Risotto. Hear me out. I know you read the title of this post and probably thought I’ve officially lost it. But I promise you this is amazing. I first heard about this bizarre combo in a book called The Flavor Thesaurus: A Compendium of Pairings, Recipes and Ideas for the Creative Cook. This book is fantastic. It lists pairings, common and strange, to help make your cooking a bit more adventurous. I page through it all the time, and have learned some yummy pairings. But the one that has stuck out to me the most is the mushroom and blueberry combination.
Apparently northern Italy cooking commonly pairs fruit with mushrooms according to the book. Who knew? My fellow Philadelphian (and internationally known chef) Marc Vetri also has a porcini and blueberry lasagna in one of his cookbooks: Il Viaggio Di Vetri: A Culinary Journey.
So when I found myself the proud recipient of a bunch of mushrooms from To-Jo Mushrooms, I knew it was finally time to try it out. It has been a really crummy, rainy day so I was craving comfort food. Risotto is a perfect rainy day food: hearty, creamy, and absolutely delicious! I’m a huge fan of mushroom risotto so I was excited to try this spin on it. In the past, I’ve made a traditional Mushroom Risotto, as well as a Wild Mushroom Farro Risotto.
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1/2 cup shallots, sliced
3 slider mushrooms, sliced (or 2 large portobello mushrooms)
1/4 cup assorted dry mushrooms, optional (I used a mixture of morel, chanterelle, and trumpet mushrooms)
Seafood is a great weeknight meal because it cooks up so quickly. The only problem is getting to the supermarket to get it because you don’t really want seafood sitting in your fridge for more than a few days. A few weeks ago, my supermarket was having a sale on uncooked frozen shrimp so I grabbed two bags to use for a quick meal.
I somehow have never made Shrimp Scampi, so when I saw a version on Cooking Planit, I decided it was about time! This recipe takes about 30 minutes if you buy the shrimp already peeled, deveined, and with the tails removed. (I have a review of Cooking Planit within my Braised Baby Back Ribs and Creamy Polenta with Brussels Sprouts and Pancetta post if you’d like to read more about this app.)
I’ve made a couple of farro recipes on this blog before and I just love it. If you haven’t tried it yet, I strongly suggest it. I really like it as a substitute for Arborio rice in risotto dishes; farro adds a nice bite to the creamy risotto that I just love.
So I was super excited when Tuscan Fields, a delicious brand of organic farro, gave me and 49 other bloggers the opportunity to not only try their farro, but to create a recipe using the farro in the hopes of winning a scholarship to the Eat Write Retreat conference this year which is being held in my hometown of Philadelphia!
The nutty flavor of farro would be perfect with the earthiness of mushrooms so I decided to make a wild mushroom farro risotto with Tuscan Fields’ Farro Perlato. I added a bit of bacon to really heighten the flavor of the risotto as well.
Ingredients:
1 package Tuscan Fields Farro Perlato
2 cups beef broth
4 slices bacon
2 tablespoons butter, divided
2 large shallots, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
½ teaspoon dried sage
½ teaspoon dried thyme
½ cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 lb assorted wild mushrooms
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese, plus more for garnish
I tend to make a lot of mistakes when cooking. I won’t read the directions entirely through or will completely forget to pick up an ingredient and then at the last minute need to improvise. This time around, I actually read through the directions beforehand and had everything I needed, except I waited to long to use the Lobster and it had already gone bad. What an expensive mistake! So this recipe was originally a Lobster Corn Risotto, sigh. Anyways, it was still delicious and worth sharing!
Cold weather always makes me crave comfort food. I tend to really want pasta (and would be perfectly happy eating it every day that drops below 40 degrees) but am always open to healthier comfort food options. BetterEats.com had a lighter recipe for Chicken Fricassee, which is a French stew with chicken, vegetables, white wine, and cream that when paired with some day old bread makes a fantastic comfort food option.
Ingredients:
2 1/2 pounds chicken pieces (breast halves, thighs, and drumsticks) – bone-in, skin removed (I used 1 chicken breast, 1 thigh, 1 leg, and 1 drumstick)
1/4 teaspoon salt
pepper, black – to taste
2 tablespoons flour, all-purpose
1 tablespoon oil, olive, extra virgin
1 cup shallots (about 4 large ones)
1 cup wine, dry white
1 1/2 cups broth, chicken, less sodium
1 medium carrot – peeled and thinly sliced (about 1/3 cup)
1 pound mushrooms, I used 1/2 lb baby bellas, 1/2 lb button – wiped clean and halved or quartered
So, I found myself in the odd position of craving farro. Yes, farro. So after some searching, I came across a Cooking Light recipe that sounded fantastic. The recipe not only has farro, but it also uses apple cider (how autumnal!) AND it’s a risotto! I’ve never thought of using farro in a risotto but, better late than never.
Ingredients:
Risotto:
1 cup farro
1.5 cups fat free, less sodium chicken broth
1.5 cups apple cider
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup chopped fennel bulb (1 small fennel bulb should cover you)
