Attempt at Italian!

Hey everyone!

So this week I made Creamy Lemon Chicken Picatta and surprisingly it turned out really good! I will definitely be saving this recipe which can be found here:  http://therecipecritic.com/2015/04/creamy-lemon-chicken-piccatta/

I decided to try this recipe because we had some Italian friends over this past week and they own an Italian restaurant where I live. They make some really good lemon chicken picatta. The owners are really nice people. Their family came from Italy and lived in New York for a long time, and then they came down here to Georgia. He is always telling us stories from when him and his wife were young and growing up with strict Italian parents. He has a thick New York/Italian accent and he stories are always hilarious.

Making this recipe was the first time I actually made good pasta!! I usually can never get my pasta cooked good. I don’t know why, because it should be easy to cook. Just boil the water and put the pasta in. I could never cook it the right amount of time I guess, but this time I did it!

I am learning! 🙂

Crockpots!

Hey everyone!

I have always heard how easy crockpots are but…wow! So convenient! This week I made a creamy ranch chicken and it was so good!

My week has been super busy so I didn’t have much time to go to the store or cook so I went to Pinterest to see what I could make with what I already had at my house. I found this recipe: http://sugar-n-spicegals.com/2013/03/creamy-ranch-crock-pot-chicken.html . On Pinterest, I have always seen super easy crockpot recipes but I never really put much attention on them…I don’t know why, but now I am definitely going to be trying some out! For this recipe I just put everything in the crockpot, turned it on, and when I got home from work my dinner was ready! Whoever invented the crockpot is my new friend 🙂

I served this dish with rice and it worked out great! Does anyone out there have any suggestions on keeping the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pan?

I think next week I will try some kind of soup, so if anyone has suggestions please let me know! I hope everyone has a good weekend!

“You have a man now so you have to learn how to do this.”

Hey Everyone!

Before I get into today’s meal I wanted to start out by telling a background story on why I decided to get serious about learning how to cook. I recently got married and my husband lives in Guatemala. I have spent the last two summers there with him and his family. The way of life is much different there, it’s a lot more simple. His mother still washes clothes by hand. Her kitchen is outside and she cooks over the fire. To make a long story short, one day while I was there my husband left to work for the day so it was just me and his mom at the house. She called for me so I went to the sink where she was standing, with a dead, de-feathered chicken in her hand. I am not a vegetarian or anything but I do love animals, and I definitely don’t prefer to see how they become food. His mom told me that I have a man now so I need to learn how to prepare a chicken. So she told me to grab a chair and to sit and watch her as she dissected the chicken. It was really sad, and I was not able to eat the chicken that day-but she had a point, I did need to learn how to cook. So here I am, trying to learn!

The meal I made this week was italian fried chicken with cole-slaw and baked vegetables. Surprisingly everything turned out pretty good!

This is the recipe I used for the chicken: http://www.barefeetinthekitchen.com/2014/07/pan-fried-italian-chicken-recipe.html I don’t really like a heavy fried chicken, and this chicken doesn’t have any breading so that is why I chose this recipe. I did not have basil or oregano so I ended up just using italian seasoning, but it tasted great!

The slaw was my favorite part! If I were to change anything next time I would probably not add as many onions, but other than that I loved it! It had a lot a different flavors that went well together. This is the recipe I used: http://familymealblog.com/2014/06/03/crunchy-cornslaw-a-new-twist-on-the-same-ol-slaw/

The baked vegetables also turned out good! This is the recipe I used: http://www.plainchicken.com/2015/04/baked-parmesan-squash.html

The things I learned while making this meal are that I need to be better at timing the meal and to be more careful while shredding carrots and putting things into hot oil…cut and burned myself, but practice makes perfect right? 😉

Thanks for reading!