Lemon Garlic & Rosemary Chicken

• Thawed chicken breasts
• 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
  
• Zest and juice of 1 medium lemon
• 2 Tbs dried rosemary
• 1 tsp Kosher salt
• Freshly cracked black pepper

1. In a mixing bowl combine olive oil, garlic, lemon zest and juice, rosemary, salt and pepper.
   
2. Add chicken breasts to a large Ziplock bag, pour in your marinade, seal up and let sit for at least 30 minutes to 1 hour.
   
3. In a pan over medium to medium high heat add chicken breasts plus marinade. Cook on each side 5-6 minutes or until cooked through.
   

* Note: If you have a side dish disaster, i.e. pouring all of your pasta down the drain on accident, the chicken can be kept warm in a 150-200 degree oven until you correct your foolishness.

Everything Bars

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter or margarine, melted

2 cups graham cracker crumbs

1 (14 ounce) can Sweetened Condensed Milk

3\4 cup semisweet chocolate morsels

3\4 cup butterscotch chips

1 1/2 cups flaked coconut

1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a mixing bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs and butter. Press crumbs into bottom of 9x13-inch baking pan.

Pour sweetened condensed milk over crumb mixture and spread to cover (be careful not to break up the crust). Layer evenly with chocolate chips butterscotch chips and nuts. Cover with coconut. Press down lightly with a fork.

Bake 20-25 minutes or until lightly browned on top. Cool until firm. Cut into desired sized bars.

Spaghetti Carbonara

Serves 2-3

1/2 lb of spaghetti
1 T Olive Oil
2-3 ounces of pancetta or bacon, sliced or cubed
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 large egg
1/2 cup freshly ground parmesan cheese
1/4 C cream or half and half
handful of parsley, chopped (to garnish)

*Make sure that the pasta is piping hot when combined with the sauce to cook the egg.

Bring pot of water to a boil and cook pasta.

In the mean time heat olive oil in a large saute pan. Add bacon and cook for 3-4 minutes, until it is cooked (but not crunchy). Add garlic and cook (just to soften, do not burn) - about 30 seconds.

Prepare the sauce: whisk together the egg, cheese, and cream in a small bowl.

Drain pasta and toss in saute pan with bacon and garlic, coating the pasta. Remove pan from heat. Add the sauce to pasta, tossing to coat. Heat from the pasta and pan will cook the egg. Serve and garnish with parsley.

I fell in love with carbonara in Greece. This is one of those recipes that literally takes 10 minutes to make and is deceptively scrumptious - people will think you spent a long time cooking this. We make this recipe about once a month (I'd do it more often, but we don't eat bacon very often).

Food Find: Morningstar Farm Chik Patties

(See my post on J'09 on TN about this...)

On nights when it's really warm and/or we've both had a long day at work, hitting a fast food joint for dinner is a pretty regular occurance. We're trying to ammend that, but there are nights where chopping/sauteing/baking/etc. is just NOT appealing. So, we've started finding low-cal, make-at-home alternatives to some of our fast food faves.

This Week: Home Remake of Wendy's Spicy Chicken Sandwich

Since my husband is a vegetarian, he obviously doesn't eat this at Wendy's, but I do, and I love it. We wanted meals we can eat together, so the first thing we did was find a chicken patty substitue. The best one we found:

Morningstar Farms Chik Patties Original

Here's the rest:

*Cook the patties to package instructions (we do ours on an indoor Cuisniart grill)
*During the last moments of cooking, add Hot Pepper Jack cheese (this is to simulate the spice rub Wendy's puts on their actual patty)
*Fix whole wheat hamburger bun with light mayo (or Mustard), sliced tomatoes, and lettuce

We paired ours with oven baked sea salted potato wedges.

Enjoy! :-)

Mustard Pork Chops

Ingredients:

2-4 pork chops (depending on size, about 1 lb)
2 Teaspoons of garlic oil *see below
1/2 cup Hard Cider
1 T whole-grain mustard
1/2 C heavy cream

Cut fat off the pork chops. Beat them briefly with a mallet between two pieces of wax paper or plastic wrap to make them thinner.

*Garlic oil: Heat olive oil in a saute pan with a couple/few cloves of crushed garlic.

Heat oil in pan (make sure that the garlic cloves have been removed), and cook pork chops on med high for a few minutes each side (depending on thickness; 3-5 minutes). Remove chops to plate and keep warm.

Pour the cider into the pan and deglaze the pan. Let it bubble for a about a minute, then add the mustard and cream. Cook for a few more minutes.

Pour sauce over plated pork chops.

The sauce is great with gnocchi, and you can add these to the pan to coat them with the sauce before serving on the plate.


This is a great dish to make when you don't want to mess with a lot of ingredients, and you don't have a ton of time, but you still want something interesting and tasty!