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Archive for the ‘Recipes’ Category

Chicken Marsala with Browned Butter Sauce

Hubby and I stumbled across a restaurant chain called The Old Spaghetti Factory years ago. Whenever we travel to a corner of the world where there is one, we enjoy eating there. My favorite thing on their menu is their Chicken Marsala. It is served with this luscious browned butter sauce and topped with Myzithra cheese.

I finally found a Chicken Marsala recipe with the browned butter sauce that tastes just as yummy as the The Old Spaghetti Factory’s recipe. At first, I was a bit fearful of making it because a recipe that cautions you about setting your cookware on fire always makes me stop to think if I really want to make it. But I did, so I plunged ahead and no fire extinguisher was needed.

Ingredients for Chicken Marsala

Start by making the Browned Butter sauce. Melt butter in a heavy saucepan.

As the butter cooks, it will begin to foam. The trick is to keep it from foaming out of the pan and possibly catching things on fire.

You'll cook the butter sauce until it turns brown and has a caramel smell. Then you strain it and it is ready to serve.

Flour the chicken before placing into a saute pan.

Brown the chicken before adding in the wine and mushrooms.

Put your cooked chicken Marsala on a bed of thin spaghetti noodles.

Grate your cheese and sprinkle liberally over the chicken after it is plated and you have spooned on butter sauce.

Enjoy!

Chicken Marsala with Browned Butter Sauce

Chicken Marsala:

4 -6 boneless, skinless, thinly cut chicken breasts

1/2 cup flour

2 tbsp. olive oil

2 tbsp. butter

1 cup fresh sliced mushrooms

1 bottle Marsala wine

dash of salt

seasonings to taste

thin spaghetti noodles, cooked according to package directions

Put olive oil into a deep skillet or saute pan. Warm over medium heat. Mix  flour, salt and seasonings in ziploc bag. Coat each piece of chicken with flour mixture before placing in saute pan. Brown on both sides – about two minutes per side. Add wine and mushrooms and cook for about 10 minutes or until chicken is done.

Cook spaghetti noodles and set aside.

Browned Butter Sauce:

2 cubes of butter

1 cup Myzithra cheese, finely grated

Cut cubes of butter into 8 pieces  each and place in a heavy 2-quart saucepan. Place the pan on a burner on medium heat. Bring butter to a slow boil (about five minutes). Once the butter starts to boil, stir constantly to prevent residue from sticking to the bottom of the pan. The butter will foam and rise as it cooks.  Do not, repeat, do not let it overflow the pan. This could start a fire and that would totally ruin a perfectly good recipe!

Once the butter stops rising and foaming, cook until it is amber in color and has a caramel aroma.  Remove pan from burner and let settle for a few minutes. The sediment will settle on the bottom of the pan.

Pour the butter through a strainer into a bowl. Do not disturb the sediment.  Set aside. (The butter sauce can be stored covered in the fridge and reheated as needed).

Using a fine grater, grate 1 cup of the Myzithra cheese. This cheese is a Greek hard cheese and can be found in the specialty cheese section of most grocery stores.

Plate noodles, top with chicken and mushrooms, spoon on butter sauce and finish it off with a liberal sprinkling of the cheese.

Enjoy!

Happy Entertaining!

Shanna

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Delicious Raspberry Bars

Way back during my junior year of college, I somehow worked it out to have Fridays free from classes.  It was awesome. Then I realized I really, really needed a job, so I found one babysitting.

Fridays were great days for me. I got to go hang out at a nice house with the sweetest little baby, and the fun lady I babysat  for always gave me open range in the kitchen. She kept a secret stash of  delicious raspberry cookies, only sharing their hiding place with me because her husband and older son would devour them all in seconds. So I managed to not eat them all when I babysat. But even one of them was plenty. They were rich and delicious and divine.

Even though that baby is now a college student, I still remember how good those cookies tasted (and how much I loved babysitting Jake).

This recipe is close to what those cookies tasted like, especially if you dust them with powdered sugar before serving.

Try them out and enjoy!

Ingredients for Raspberry Bars

Combine the crust ingredients until crumbly.

Press the crust mixture into the bottom of the baking pan.

Much to everyone's surprise, I made raspberry jam this year and boy is it tasty!

Spread the jam over the crust.

Sprinkle jam with remaining crust.

Once bars are cooked, remove from oven, cool and then dust with powdered sugar.

 

Raspberry Bars

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats, uncooked

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 cup raspberry jam

Powdered sugar, optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir in oats and sugar. Cut in butter with a fork or pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal.

Press two-thirds of the mixture into an 11 x 7 inch pan. I gave mine a light spray of PAM. Once you have the crust pressed into the pan, top evenly with jam. Sprinkle remaining oat mixture on top.

Bake for 30-35 minutes. Cool, cut into squares and dust with powdered sugar.

Ta-Da! Don't you just want to eat one now!

 

Happy Entertaining!

Shanna

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The other day I needed a vegetarian dish and decided quiche would fit the bill nicely.

This spinach and mushroom version is very tasty, simple to make  and a joy to serve. Sit back and get ready for the compliments!

Ingredients for Spinach and Mushroom Quiche

Saute fresh spinach leave, mushrooms and onions.

Saute fresh spinach leaves, mushrooms and onions.

Layer spinach and mushrooms into the prepared pie shell.

Sprinkle on the cheese then top with egg and cream mixture before popping into the oven.

Quiche - ready to devour in all its golden brown deliciousness.

Spinach and Mushroom Quiche

One 9-inch prepared pastry shell

4 eggs

2 cups cream

3/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. all-seasoning

1 cup shredded colby-jack cheese

1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled

1/4 cup minced onion

2 cups fresh spinach leaves, torn

2 cups mushrooms

1 tbsp. butter

1 tbsp. olive oil

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Either make your own pie crust or use a prepared one and line a 9-inch pie pan. (I made my own crust and remembered all the reasons I decided Marie Callendar’s are good enough. But then I took a bite of the golden flaky crust and had to rethink my position on that… again.) Set aside.

In a saute pan or large skillet on medium heat, warm butter and olive oil. Once butter is melted, add mushrooms, spinach and onions. You can use fresh minced onion or onion flakes, whatever floats your boat. My boat floats better with onion flakes. Cook for about five minutes, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms are tender. Place into pie shell and spread out evenly.

Top with cheeses. I threw in the feta at the last minutes (hence the reason it is not on the ingredients photo) but it really was a flavorful choice for the better.

Beat eggs slightly, until light but not foamy. Add in cream, salt and seasoning. Beat until mixed and then pour on top of cheese in pan. Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce temperature to 325 degrees and bake an addition 30 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center of the quiche comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes before cutting.

Serve in wedges and enjoy!

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I was standing in the baking aisle at the grocery store the other day trying to decide what to make for an upcoming party when my eye landed on these.

I think I heard music playing and someone shout “Yahoo!” (that may have been me). Caramel bits. What a concept. Little bits of delicious caramel ready to turn into something amazing. The part that I really loved is the line that says “Unwrapped for Easy Melting.” Right on! Call me lazy and a slug, but I hate wasting time and precious brain cells unwrapping caramels. So I generally just don’t make anything with caramel for that very reason.

The file of recipes stored in my head immediately went to a recipe I have for toffee bars. They are moist and delicious and completely bad for you. What would happen if I threw in some of these caramel bits? I had to find out!

So I brought them home and whipped up a batch of caramel toffee bars. I almost fainted when I took a bite out of one warm from the oven. They are sooooo good. No really, in the top 10 of bar cookies I’ve ever tasted (and believe me, there has been a lot of cookie tasting!).

The cast of characters for Caramel Toffee Bars, minus the coc0nut I forgot to put in the photo.

You start with a simple crust pressed into a baking pan.

While the crust is baking, melt the caramels with a bit of cream.

Pour the melted caramel over the top of the crust.

Top the caramel layer with the filling layer and return pan to oven. Try to keep from melting in a puddle while this bakes. When you take it out of the oven, it will be all golden brown and smelling incredible. Sprinkle with Heath Toffee Bits, which will start to melt into the top.

Take a deep breath, take a bite - and then melt in a puddle before eating the rest of the bar.

Caramel Toffee Bars

Crust:

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1 cup flour

Cream together and press in bottom of baking pan. I used an 11 x 7  inch pan but you could also use an 8 x 8 inch pan for a thicker bar or an 9 x 13 inch pan for a thinner bar. Bake 10 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Caramel Filling:

bag of caramel bits (11 ounce bag)

1/3 cup of heavy cream

Put caramels and cream in a microwave safe bowl and heat in 30-second intervals, stirring until caramels are melted. If you aren’t a lazy slug like me, you could use regular caramels. You’ll need about 2 cups. When melted, pour over the top of the cooked crust.

Topping:

2 eggs

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 tbsp. flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 cup coconut

1/2 tsp. salt

1 package of Heath Bits ‘o Brickle Toffee Bits

Mix ingredients together and pour over the caramel on top of the crust. Return to the oven and bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

When done, remove from the oven and top with Heath Toffee Bits. If you want to turn this dessert from something incredible that will make your taste buds scream “Thank you!” for days into something even more wicked…. try drizzling a bit of melted chocolate on top. You may need someone nearby to help you off the floor after you take a bite. Melt about 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips with 2 tbsp. of heavy cream in the microwave. Just use a spoon or a knife to drizzle over the bars.

Happy Entertaining and Enjoy!

Shanna

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