We cook: Chicken Parmesan

It may be embarrassing to admit, but I have never cooked chicken before.  I find raw chicken gross.  DH, however, showed me recently how easy it is to fry chicken at home and I may have to get over my aversion because it was delicious.  For dinner a few weeks ago we made spaghetti with a normal jar of tomato sauce and then fried chicken to make chicken parmesan as well.  We didn't happen to have many ingredients in the kitchen at the time so this was a very bare bones recipe, but it turned out pretty well all the same...really if you cover something fried in cheese, how bad can it be??

Ingredients

• Chicken breasts
• Flour
• Spices
• Vegetable Oil
• Spaghetti Sauce
• Cheese

Instructions

1. Butterfly the chicken breasts. Directions
2. Mix flour with seasoned salt, pepper, and garlic salt to taste (this can pretty much be any seasonings that you have on hand.  You want to flavor it a little bit more strongly than you think is necessary)
3. Heat about half an inch of oil in a frying pan until it sizzles when you throw in a drop of water 
4. Dip the chicken in the flour to coat both sides and then put it in the pan
5. When chicken is mostly cooked, flip to the second side
6. Carefully re-dip the chicken in the flour to coat both sides a second time 
7. Re-cook chicken in the oil on both sides briefly

When you take the chicken out, you can pat some of the oil off with paper towels and cut into the thickest part of the chicken breast to check that it is fully cooked.  Then dump some tomato sauce and cheese on top.  We used Parmesan cheese because it was all we had at the time.   You can then throw them in the oven or toaster oven on broil to melt the cheese if you want to.

Update

It has been a while since I posted because there has been a ton going on!  DH is mostly moved in and is spending the majority of his time here.  Most of his time during the last two weeks has been spent applying to MED SCHOOL, which means a lot of my time has been spent proofing resumes and essays.  Now we wait for letters of recommendation and scores to come in.  Fingers crossed.  

In other news:  I finished the thank you letters!  It was a process and I hate my handwriting, but it feels awesome to be done : )  I have already heard from several people that they have received the letters...apparently my mom cried.  So I count that as a win.

My sister-in-law had a baby shower this past weekend and says she loved the blanket and stuffed animal.

I officially have a license and social security card for my new name, I've mailed the paperwork for my other major name change forms, and we got our wedding pictures back! 

I love them!  They turned out better than I hoped.

I am working on publishing my first "first author" paper at work...oh and it was my birthday last week.  DH came back to town early, picked me up from work, and cooked me dinner.  It was very low key and wonderful.  I don't think that I could have handled a big party with everything else going on this summer : )

We have tried out a TON of recipes recently playing with all of our new kitchen gear.  I will post updates with some of the recipes.

Baby Blanket Update

With life so busy, it took me longer than expected to finish but the baby blanket is done with about 3 weeks to spare.

Final Product:

Crochet Baby Blanket

My newest project (currently in progress) is a blanket for my niece-to-be.  Like the crochet gift that I posted about earlier, I am making this blanket from the same yarn that I used for the blanket that I made for her mom.  This has a few advantages (1) you already know what the yarn will feel like in its final form (2) save money by starting with the yarn left over from the previous blanket (3) save time by not obsessing about which colors to use or trying to pick colors that look nice together (4) everything ends up matching adorably.

The down side is that if you do not have enough yarn to finish the blanket, you may have trouble matching certain colors depending on how long ago you bought them.

The leftover yarn and my initial plan for color order:

I have been told that the baby's room is being decorated in pinks and greens.  My main concerns with yarn for the baby blanket were that it would be soft on the baby's skin, that it wasn't wool (allergies), and that the material and colors would be machine washable and not show stains easily.  I like this pattern (http://www.favecrafts.com/Crochet-Afghans/Bavarian-Rainbow-Afghan) because it seems bright and interesting and durable.  A lacy baby blanket with lots of wholes seems impractical to me.  If you are interested in working "in the round", this is a relatively easy and interesting pattern that consists mainly of triple crochets.

First two rows:

The point at which I ran out of dark green yarn (approximately 20 inches in diameter):

Unable to match the dark green yarn color from several years ago, I rip out the stitches : (

I have 4 or 5 more rows to go.  I will update with a picture of the final product when I am done.

We cook: Almond, Raisin Biscuits

I know how to cook basics.  I can make pasta or rice, throw a fish fillet in a frying pan, follow directions to make a basic stew, and cook scrambled eggs/grits/pancakes on a moments notice...and that sadly is about it.  I can follow directions reasonably well to cook from recipes, but I do not have practice making many different meals or experience to know what flavors taste good together. My knowledge of vegetables and spices are especially lacking.

In an attempt to eat healthier, stop spending so much money on restaurants and take-out, and not waste all of the new kitchen equipment we received as wedding presents, I am learning to cook!

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For a girls night this past Thursday, I modified an easy oatmeal raisin cookie recipe: http://bakerbettie.com/perfect-oatmeal-raisin-cookies-with-only-6-ingredients/

I love this recipe because it boils oatmeal raisin cookies down to the bare essentials.  I am so happy whenever (1) I can make recipes without going to the grocery store and (2) a recipe actually tells me which ingredients are necessary and which ones are optional.  It makes life so much easier for a minimally experienced cook.  Here, I wanted to make a hearty, slightly healthy version of oatmeal raisin cookies that could potentially be eaten for breakfast instead of dessert.

















They were definitely not super sweet, but they tasted healthy and the almonds made them much heartier.  I ate these for breakfast on a couple of road trips this weekend and they worked rather well : )

Ingredients

• 3/4 STICK SOFTENED BUTTER (3/8 cup) 
• 1/2 CUP SUGAR
• 1/4 CUP HONEY
• 1 EGG
• 1 TSP BAKING POWDER (optional)
• 1 CUP PLUS 2 TBSP FLOUR
• 1 CUP RAISINS
• 1 1/2 CUPS ROLLED OATS
• 1/2 to 1 CUP CHOPPED ALMONDS 

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. Mix the butter and sugar together until completely combined.
3. Add the egg and honey and mix until incorporated. If using, add the vanilla, baking powder, and cinnamon and mix until incorporated.
4. Stir in the flour then the raisins, almonds, and then oatmeal until combined.
5. Drop rounded mounds of dough on greased (she called for ungreased, but that never seems to work out for me) cookie sheets and sprinkle with salt if using. Flatten the dough mounds slightly before baking.
6. Bake at 350ºF until just lightly browned on the edges and middle still looks undercooked, about 9 minutes (it took me about 14 minutes).

Blueberry Picking

In other news this weekend, we picked 18 lbs of blueberries.  Including the 30 minute drive each way, it only took us about 3 hours.  We are all about projects and saving money recently and I have never been blueberry picking, so I was very excited.  I will just say that it was very fun and the blueberries are delicious!  We froze most of them to be pulled out over the year for baking with or eating in Cheerios.  We also saved the smushed and under-ripened blueberries to experiment with for our next round of brewing.  DH wanted to try to make a blueberry wine but I'm more excited about trying to add them to our next honey-wheat beer.  I'm not normally a fan of fruit beers, but for some reason a slightly blueberry flavored honey-wheat sounds awesome to me.

DH Moves in! (Part 2)

Determined to actually clean our apartment, DH and I steam clean the carpets, scrub out the fridge, spend 2 hours removing cat hair from the couch, organize closets, and begin to set up the library.