30 Minute Lemon Brown Sugar Chicken

Any dinner recipe that begins with "30 minutes" bumps to the top of my recipe list.  There is such a feeling of relief when I know that dinner can be thrown together quickly and my kids won't "starve" to death during the process, because  you know waiting for dinner to cook is the same thing as "starving."

I found this recipe on Pinterest (of course), and I have made it several times with great success.  It is a great combination of sweet and sour that isn't too heavy.  I LOVE lemon and chicken together so the little bits of lemon rind in the sauce are little pieces of flavor just exploding in your mouth...YUM!  Plus, my husband isn't the biggest fan of chicken.  I sort of burned him out on chicken when we were first married because it was cheap, and I knew how to make it.  Now if I make chicken it has to be special and very full of flavor which this dish is.

The original recipe consists of a sweet glaze, but we like sauce in our house.  To get the sauce, because we are saucy people, I used more lemons and brown sugar than the original recipe called for and a some chicken stock.  The extra sauce was wonderful on the side of pasta we had, but wasn't too heavy.  I hope you ENJOY!

30 Minute Lemon Brown Sugar Chicken
Recipe Source: Modified Slightly from Eat Live Run



2 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
juice of 6 large lemons
1/2 cup chicken broth
3 T lemon zest
1 cup flour
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp sea salt
1.5 T canola oil
6 T brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350.

Very carefully cut your chicken breasts in half to make two thin pieces of chicken.  Lay the pieces between two pieces of wax paper and pound with a meat mallet to make them about the same thickness all the way across. (Thin pieces of meat  cook faster than thick pieces do).

Combine the flour, paprika and sea salt in a cake or pie pan. Drop each chicken breast in the mixture and toss to coat completely.

Heat the oil over medium high heat in a large oven proof skillet. Drop each chicken breast in the oil and brown on both sides (should take only about four minutes). Remove chicken breasts and keep warm on a plate.

Pour the lemon juice and chicken broth into the pan and stir to deglaze. Place the chicken back into the pan and sprinkle with the brown sugar and lemon zest. (If your pan isn't oven proof, use a casserole dish to finish baking the dish.)

Bake for thirty minutes, or until internal temperature reaches 165.

Saying Goodbye to a House: What Homemade Really Means

So many changes have occurred here over the last year--some of them joyous, some kind of bittersweet, some blatantly sad. My first child graduated from high school and bravely headed off to college. My sweet old dad passed away in September, as did my extraordinary mother-in-law on Christmas day (a loss we are still trying to absorb). And, I packed up and sold the home that I grew up in and that my parents occupied for over 50 years. That last event hasn't quite been completed . . . the sale closes next week.

As the closing approaches, I find it more and more difficult to think objectively about the house. Not that one ever really feels dispassionate about the house in which they grew up, nor should they. Despite the fact that it's essentially empty now, the place seems more full to me than it did a couple of months ago when it was still stocked with the belongings of over five decades. It's as if the multitude of memories produced there are all suddenly hovering in the air. Everywhere I turn, a memory appears.

There's the rustic workbench in the basement that my father built when I was little, where he would often spend a leisurely weekend afternoon. He'd be down there, tinkering with this or that while listening to the Detroit Tigers on the radio, or maybe to a live broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. I can picture him leaning against the bench with a distant and relaxed smile, enjoying the music, a golden glass of beer in one hand and a Lucky Strike cigarette smoldering in an ashtray nearby. That workbench is staying with the house, where it belongs. I'm pleased the new owners want to keep it.

And the kitchen, oh the kitchen. It was always the place where I would check first if I was looking for my mom. An awful lot of baked goods originated from that room, along with a lot of silliness and laughter. We had a cumbersome wooden-topped dishwasher, purchased the year I was born, that you had to push/pull over to the sink and hook up to the faucet like a fire-hose to a hydrant. It weighed a ton. I recall moving it into place with my mom in the evening after dinner (no way could a kid do it alone), and then in the morning we'd unhook it, shove it back into its cubby hole, and put away the clean dishes. Occasionally the monstrous thing would get stuck halfway through its journey (a journey of maybe four feet) and we'd have to wrestle it into place, giggling together at the absurdity of the whole scenario. There was cause to rejoice once that dishwasher was replaced with a built-in model when I was about thirteen.

And there was the tiny shelf--a secret hiding place of sorts--built oddly into the sequestered corner of a clothes shoot (remember those?) where my sister and I would often hide a small doll or stuffed animal while playing. When I asked her a few days ago if she wanted me to say anything to the house for her (she lives far away), she specifically instructed me to say goodbye to that special hiding place. Tomorrow, I will do so.

Even the impractically small garage draws me in. As empty now as the house, it used to guard bicycles and badminton rackets, tether ball poles (remember those, too?), rotary lawn mowers, and metal watering cans. I can still see my brother's blue Schwinn bicycle, the one with high handlebars and a long "banana" seat. When I was six years old, I thought he was the coolest twelve-year old on the block speeding along on that thing.

Are the objects the memories?

Those people who are professional organizers say that, in trying to sort and discard the material flotsam and jetsam of life, you should repeatedly remind yourself that the objects themselves are not the memories. "The objects are not the memories!" I keep saying that to myself these days and I know it's definitely true, but it takes a while to convince yourself of that. Thank heaven we get to carry the memories away with us for safe keeping and don't have to leave them behind or pack them into storage.

It's the memories more than anything else that are, after all, quintessentially "homemade."

(If you'd like to comment on this post, or read any existing comments, please click on the purple COMMENTS below.)

A Long Winter's Nap

Favorite Photo Friday (might be my favorite photo - ever.)

Quote of the Day:
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.from Twas the Night Before Christmas by Clement Moore

Leo, the napping cat

All the gifts have been handed out, opened, admired, and the wrappings and trimming have been put away. As we're saying good-bye to the holidays and hello to the New Year, let us all take a few moments to rest, reflect, and enjoy.

Go. Create. Inspire!

Journaling Prompt:  What are your reflections on the holidays, the New Year, napping?

Chocolate Nutella cookies!

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45807191/ns/today-food/t/bake-home-chef-winners-nutella-cookies/#.TwZmuNS0x2A

Happy New Year Everyone!  Buon Anno!
Ended the year winning the Home Chef Challenge over at the Today Show in New York City.  What a way to end 2011. 
Here is the link to the Today Show!
Buon Appetito!
More great  Italian Food coming soon!  Stay tuned!

Insecure and afraid of Getting the Hook

Quote of the Day:  Real Vaudeville shows would Drop The Cow on bad or overly long acts with "the hook", a shepherd's crook extended from offstage to pull away the performer. But in cartoons, you don't even need to be on a stage to get the hook. Any bad performance can get the hook, even if you're performing on top of a fence - it just reaches out from Behind the Black and drags you offscreen. Wearing a red-and-white vertically striped shirt and a straw boater makes you especially susceptible to this, as does dancing while holding a cane. Spending a while dodging the hook, continuing to perform all the while, before eventually getting snared is a common feature.

Though he didn't originate it, the hook is forever associated with "Sandman" Sims, a tap dancer who would use the hook on bad acts at the Apollo Theatre.
from www.tvropes.org

It's the first Wednesday of the month and year and another round of the Insecure Writer's Group. Alex J. Cavanaugh is the host and many, many of us bloggers have signed up. My hope is that acknowledging the insecurites, naming them and facing them, will be like staring down our dragon and slaying him. 

I was out the other evening with these lovely ladies for a pre-New Year's celebration and some collaboration. My best writer-mama-pal Roxane B. Salonen was visiting from Fargo, and we had dinner with my friend and publicist Krista Rolfzen Soukup. Sure, we talked a little business, but our main event was the delicious food and time to talk, minus our collective 13 children!

During our discussion, I confessed that I felt like I was playing a part in a play (one that I wrote?), where I'm being thrust onto center stage, given all the great lines, then sent home to write about it. I keep expecting the curtain to close, or that I'll get that proverbial hook and yanked off the stage. Who am I to be invited to shows and restaurants, meet and review the performers and performances?

I had this note by my desk before I moved that said, "Sometimes, you look out at the audience waiting for the applause and all you see are empty seats." (I just went upstairs to look for it and couldn't find it. Maybe it got lost in the move, or maybe it's no longer something to hang onto.)

Krista keeps telling me that people want me to come to their shows, clubs, or restaurants. She told me that the owner of a newly opened establishement said, "It's about time someone wrote reviews for us." And, "I hope she likes it." I also heard from some friends when I told them that my reviews were now on the Brainerd Dispatch website. They said, "That's great that someone is writing reviews for us for places like the Guthrie theater and local shows."

Dare I say it?  They need me.

Since my word for the year is Dare!, I do need to say it. I'm needed, and I will be invited, and I'll do my best to describe the food, the atmosphere, the performance, the location, anything that people would want to know before they go. Bring on the invites! I've been dared!

We did small plates to share.

Delicious Fare

We flirted with the fine, young waiter (who indicated that he & Krista weren't supposed to be photographed together *wink),

and chatted it up with Jim Olsen, the guitarist for the evening.

(He'll be playing at the newly opened Moonshine Lounge on Jan. 14.)

Go. Create. Inspire!

And, dare to be the one invited, attending, and reviewing.

Journaling Prompt:  Have you ever felt like you might get "the hook?" What have you dared to do lately?

Torta Caprese

 

When chocolate, almonds, eggs and butter come together, it can only mean one fabulous dessert.  This Torta is easy and simple to create.   I am all about traditional and  classic recipes and this one is no exception.  From the Island of Capri, off the Amalfi Coast, comes this wonderful dessert.  You might say my love for it is genetic.  My uncles had a Pastry shop on 116st street and 2nd avenue in Manhattan.  I can remember as a child my Grandmother Barbara on patrol in the window standing behind all those sweet treats.  We would arrive and she would fill our bag with sweet delights of all different varieties and give each of us a roll of pennies.  My family is from Vietri sul Mare, on the Amalfi Coast just across from the Island of Capri, where this decadent dessert originated.  My love for my Grandmother explains it all. Although she is no longer with us, this dessert brings to life such happy memories of days long ago.  I hope it does for all of you~ Buon Appetito~

Ingredients:

One 10 inch pan/ butter and line your pan with parchment

1 plus 1/2 cups melted and cooled unsalted butter

1 teaspoon almond extract or 2 tablespoon almond liquor

1 cup granulated sugar

4 eggs separated

10 oz semi sweet chocolate

10 oz blanched almonds

one rolling pin/ or one food processor

one dish towel

Melt your butter in a pan and cool.  Lay your almonds in a pan and set your oven to 200 degrees.  Heat for 3-4 minutes.  You will begin to smell your almonds.  This method helps the almonds release essential oils which will add wonderful flavor to your torta.  Set them aside to cool.   Wrap your cooled almonds and chocolate in your dish towel.  Use your rolling pin to brea your chocolate and almonds into small pieces.  You may use your food processor.   (Some recipes will tell you to melt your chocolate with your butter.  This is not recomended because your outcome will not be dense.  The classic method of preparation was all done by hand). Pour into bowl. Cream your eggs and sugar in another bowl.   Add your chocolate and almonds.  Whip your egg whites with a pinch of sugar till stiff.  Gently fold your egg whites into your batter.  Then pour into your pan.   Set your oven to 350 degrees and ba e  for 45-50 minutes.  Remove from oven and cool.  Turn over in a plate, remove parchment and decorate with powdered sugar.  Enjoy~

Standard whipped cream / one cup

Whip cold whipping cream in a chilled bowl with a pinch of sugar. I add a little drop of almond liquor to mine.  Serve on the side of your Torta Caprese.  Buon Appetito~

52 Weeks

Quote of the Day:  We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day. - Edith Lovejoy Pierce

That's what it feels like to start a new journal, and is symbolic of all the new starts we have throughout a year and a lifetime. Think of a new school year, a new job, a move, a new relationship, even eating at a new restaurant. The image of the New Year being a blank journal appeals to me and my new-found sense of adventure. My word for 2012 is Dare!

Dare! is such a strong word. I kept trying to tone it down. I thought, well, maybe daring, but no, Dare! kept resurfacing. It is bold and challenging. So, I thought, maybe my word could be bold. Nope. Dare! still took the stage. Something in the universe is challenging me.

In 2012 we have 52 weeks plus a day, a leap year. What can you accomplish in 52 weeks? I was talking this over with my massage therapist Darcy Peterson Walkowiak. She does both massage and myofascial release. I am wound up pretty tight. I've had some back and shoulder trauma from hitting two deer with my van. I am hunched over keyboards all day (piano and computer), and I'm a divorced mother of four boys. Needless to say, my back and shoulders are tight. Darcy was able to release some of that tension. I told her that during the session, I was in a state of half-sleep. I had visions of sailing out into the fjords of Norway, beautiful and exciting at the same time. I also had images of tiny butterflies being released from my body, like little spirits of energy and light. She said that butterflies symbolize transformation. We also talked about those 52 weeks. If we make just one change a week towards better health, by the end of the year we will see and feel a difference. Plus, one change a week is not overwhelming. I told her my goal as a playwright is to write one new scene a week. I can't even image what great stories might unfold in 52 scenes!

With a challenging word like Dare! and 52 weeks plus one day ahead of me, my heart pumps a little stronger wondering what will be on those pages by 2013.

Cheers to you as you celebrate a New Year.
Go. Create. Inspire!

Journaling Prompt:  What would you like to work on for 52 weeks? What's your word for the year? Do you know anyone who has a birthday on Feb. 29?