Chicken Piccata

Hello friends!! It's been a year since I posted. I have been going through so many changes in life!! Our pastor had a heart attack four months ago, I was asked to step us as worship director at our church, and decided to come out of retirement and open a natural nail care spa service here in town. Balancing these new activities, the house, four kids, the animals, the garden, baking, and this blog is a new challenge. Well since my hubby is Italian, we do a lot of Italian dinners here. I know the blog is mostly southern food, but Italians know how to EAT!!! I decided to incorporate his family recipes too. The owner of the room I rent at the Spa wanted to make chicken piccata, and I told her how, but this is so much easier to follow, So here's to you Andrea!!

You need to thin the chicken breast out, not really to any specific thickness, but more so it is the same thickness all the way across. this way the chicken cooks evenly. It can get messy, so I put the chicken in a ziplock baggie and pound it with a rolling pin.

a bit of flour, Italian seasoning, few tablespoons of corn starch and salt and pepper for dredging if you are going to fry the chicken first, instead of grilling.

Most of the time I just grill the chicken outside on the BBQ until it is ALMOST done through. This time however, I breaded it and fried it so it would have a crispy crust.

Fry the chicken in olive oil until crust is golden brown. If you are grilling the chicken breast, bring it close to finished, but do NOT over cook it. You will finish it through in the sauce at the end.

In a deep wide frying pan, add 1 cup of your favorite white wine, 1/3 cup lemon juice, 1 cup chicken broth or stock, 1 Tbs of minced garlic, 1 tsp paprika, lemon zest if you used a fresh lemon, and salt and pepper. You will also need a wine glass, so you can serve yourself while you prepare dinner! Remember, if you wouldn't drink the wine because of its quality, DO NOT COOK WITH IT!!! Put the chicken breast in the sauce to cook through and consider what you would like to add. Sometimes I sautee mushrooms in butter lemon, and garlic to put over the top of the chicken, but this time I went with marinated artichoke hearts.

Then, because its Piccata, you need Capers. it just wouldn't be piccata without them!

About 1/3 cup. A lot of people recommend you rinse the capers. I love the briney flavor, so i drain them off, but do not rinse them. They are such perfect little bursts of tart and rich flavor!

The sauce will be thin, add 3 Tablespoons of cornstarch disolved in 1/4 cup water, whisking into the sauce. Make sure to move around each chicken breast to thicken all the sauce. I normally serve this dinner with garlic parmesean polenta, but I was in a hurry, so I boiled some pasta, and opened a jar of marinara I canned last year.

Serve with warm herbed bread or garlic bread, and your favorite white wine (the same one you based your sauce with!!)

Place a chicken breast on the plate, and spoon sauce, capers, and artichokes over the top. Bon Appetit!!

meatloaf cupcakes

Mmmmmmm, Savory cupcakes for dinner!! My kids will eat without a fight tonight!!!

Hey gang. Hope everyone is having a great week. It's been less than a week since my last post, I'm on a roll!! So I thought we should make something fun, and super simple for dinner. My hubby HATES meatloaf. He has offered to try these, but as of yet, we still make these only when he is working and not going to be home for dinner. With 4 kids, and our sweet *foster* son last year its hard to prepare a meal each kid will enjoy. With this fun twist, we always have great success. Who wouldn't love cupcakes for dinner?!? Let's get started!

I use 1 1/2 lbs of ground Italian sausage and 1 1/2 lb of ground beef. We have a local butcher I get a lot of our meats from. This sausage is from him, and it is so good.

Add an egg, about a cup of bread crumbs, salt, pepper, parsley, oregano, thyme, basil, celery salt, katsup...no restrictions, whatever you like. Measuring is completely optional. I guess-timate prob 3 -4 tsp of the herbs maybe a tsp of salt & pepper.

No, long before man invented spoons and utensils, God created our hands. It worked for our Great - Grandmas and before, it works for us too. Mix and mix and mix. You will start to feel the bread crumbs absorb the moisture in the mix and soften up. When this happens, it ready for the next step.

Grab a muffin tin, and fill each little cup about 1/3 full of meat mixture. Use about half of the meat, and reserve the rest. Next layer another 1/3 of green beans,shredded zucchini, blanched asparagus, wilted spinach, again your choice. Be creative! Top with the remaining meat mixture to complete the cupcake, sandwiching the green "filling" in the center. Pre-heat the oven to 350* and then bake these for around 30 minutes, until the meatloaf is done.

While the cupcakes are baking, make mashed potatoes. I try to keep them just a bit dryer than I would If they were being served on a plate, like in a chicken fried steak dinner. This way they hold the shape better as the "icing" on our cupcakes. Sometimes I take the time to pipe the potatoes on so it's prettier, but this was a rushed meal, so I skipped that this time.

We need gravy. I always have stock on hand. Any time we make pork or beef ribs we boil them before they hit the BBQ, or if we have turkey or chicken carcass, we boil that, I turn it into stock and can a few quarts each time. Make a rue, and salt and pepper to taste, then let it boil down and thicken.

When cupcakes are finished baking, pull them out, and frost with your mashed potato icing. remember this is their serving of potatoes, so be generous!

Now, poor the hot thick gravy over top, so each frosted cupcake has plenty of syrup.

These literally fly off the platter, so I'm not sure why I arranged them on a serving platter at all. I could have just thrown them at kids, and they would have been devoured in mid-air!! We love to eat these with warm, buttered homemade sourdough bread.

Well, they are cupcakes, so here they are in a cake platter, and they are very easy to make, pack, and travel with, so they would be perfect for a picnic, party, or pot luck as well as a quick dinner for the kids at home. We love these treats for dinner, and I truly hope y'all enjoy them too. I'm am loving this quiet time in the office at 5:00-6:00 am to get a few things rolling on this Blog. There are so many things to bake, fry, grill, and enjoy coming up On Fried Okie's Suburban Kitchen, so hurry back. Until then, all my love and tons of (((hugs))) from this Fried Okie!!

Stuffed artichokes

Hi Fried Okie fans!! Oh how long I've been gone. I've missed y'all!! School is winding down! Only 4 days left, I can't wait. No more alarm every morning. No more school lunches. No sitting down to help with K-7th grade homework. Since the last post, we have had a run away, a car finally die the last time, bought a mustang, and put one of the boats up for sale. Two days ago, my grandmas garage burned down, and while they were fixing a hole in my street, I had to move my car to make room for equipment, and I got a registration ticket!! A few days ago, I had a tune stuck in my head I just couldn't shake. It wasn't a song I knew, so I sat down and wrote lyrics. Three songs later, my hubby has a song, my oldest has a background track for his YouTube, and my daddy is going to lay down the music for them. With all this, I just had to make this dinner. sometimes I feel like I'm going to lose my mind, but a few minutes in the kitchen, and I feel better, and when we sit down to eat and everyone eats it up and loves it, I am a happy girl. All right, enough rambling, let's cook! I made enough stuffing to do 6 artichokes, but only made four because my hubby was at work, and my oldest is on a camping trip for the long weekend. First, cut off the stem, snip the thorny tips off the leaves, and cut each choke in half. I love the pretty purple on the inside!

I steam the halves about 10-15 minutes, just to soften them.

I had four slices of sourdough I made the other day, so I toasted up the bread in small cubes, added some salt pepper, rosemary, basil, parsley, oregano, and sage. After a quick whirl in the food processor, I had bread crumbs. I'd guess about a cup and a half.

I grated up two cups of fresh parmesan, my favorite, so it is very hard to not munch on it, and run out before I can get it into dinner!

Brown off a pound of Italian sausage, add a package of thawed and drained spinach, salt, pepper, a cup of white wine, about 1/3 cup lemon juice, and your bread crumbs. Remove from heat.

Here's where you get burned if you're not patient!! Using a spoon remove the center leaves, and the fuzzy stuff from the heart.

Add the parmesan to the filling mixture and stir in so it melts. Then just spoon the mixture into the wells you made in each artichoke.

Put a bit of olive oil on a cookie sheet, and place each choke leaf side down and bake at 350 for about 10-15 minutes.

For the picture I have both halves on a plate, but this is so filling, a serving is probably just a half, especially if you serve this with warm Italian bread. Enjoy. So good, and very easy. It only took me about 40 minutes, from start to finish!

Give this one a try, and come back and let me know how it was! I had Facebook friends request this one, so I posted it today. I'm gonna give it an honest shot to post more often, so many posts and recipes half finished, and so very little time to get them up! It's almost summer vacation, so get ready to see what the kids are cookin up in this Fried Okie's kitchen!

Fish tacos

After traveling to Mexico many summers as a teen, I fell in love with fish tacos. Our youth group used to go down to the ghettos of Tecate and Tijuana to build or repair orphanages and small churches. The local families would cook for our group. Often, giving up more than a months salary per family, to prepare one meal. Their hospitality heart breakingly touching. The food, hand made, and as authentic as it comes, was always superb. Although I can cook, I have never been able to duplicate a tortilla. Corn, flour, doesn't matter they're tasty but always pale in contrast to the warm, soft, hand made delights served to me off a cast iron skillet, prepared by a beautiful, poverty stricken, smiling woman with her grandbaby on her knee.

That being said, I bought the corn tortillas! I have been craving fish tacos for days. Normally I have an abundance of sea food. Unfortunately, we had a terrible mishap last month. We have a deep freezer in the garage. Somehow, the freezer plug got bumped just enough to shut it off, but not enough for anyone to notice it was unplugged. I went into the garage to get a popcicle for Logan, and every thing in the freezer was thawed. About $1000.00 of bulk purchased meats, spoiled, ruined, into the trash!! So, we have no back stock. No reserves. None of my children like sea food, so as of now, I am rebuilding our other meat stock. When I get a urge for fish, I have to head to the market.

Well, with fresh fish and corn taco size tortillas in hand, I head home to my favorite room in the house. Let's scadadel to the kitchen, and get to cooking!

This step is where you control the spice or heat in the tacos. In a food processor, add a few chipotle peppers and the juice of two limes. If you do not want any heat, use one pepper, completely deseeded. If you'd like some heat, use two or three peppers still removing the seeds. For intense heat, leave the seeds in the chipotle peppers. Process the peppers and juice until its is the consistency of lumpy paste.

To make the sauce mix one cup of mayo, the juice of a lime, and desired amount of chipotle paste. I used about 3Tbs. Mix well.

To get the most of each lime, let it come to room temp, and then roll the lime firmly under your hand on the counter top. This brakes up the cells in the lime, and help you get the maximum amount of juice out. Cut a lime into wedges, and shred white cabbage for the tacos, and set aside.

Now we get to the fun part, I love dreging and frying. Maybe its my Okie roots, maybe it is because I was born into a generation, where everyone suddenly shouldn't eat eggs, needed to use margarne (bleck!!), and switched to low or non-fat reduced sodium foods. Whatever the reason, I love to fry foods, almost as much as I love to eat fried foods!

Prepare a frying pan with about an inch of vegetable oil and bring it to 350 degrees.

For the batter beat 3 eggs. Whisk in about 8oz COLD dark beer. Add 2 tsp dry mustard, 1 Tbs dark chili powder, 1 tsp salt, and 1 tsp sugar. Keeping the mixture moving with a wisk, slowly add about 1 1/2 cups flour.

Soon as your oil is hot and your batter is made, try to work quickly. The cold beer hitting the hot oil causes little explosions in the batter, giving you a lite crispy fried fish.
I found beautiful codd and rushed it home to the frying pan. Rinse the fish in cold water, then blot with a paper towel. Lightly dust in flour, then go directly into the batter. Fry the pieces about 4 minutes on the first side, and about three minutes on the second side. Fry just until golden brown.

A lot of people suggest draining fried foods on a paper towel. I really don't like to do this, however, because the side of the food that comes into contact with the paper towel always becomes soggy. I place the food on a cooling rack, with paper towels underneath to catch the drips.

On a gas range, or a bbq grill, you can throw the tortillas on a flame. Warm just until the tortilla is pliable. You can also wrap a small stack in wet paper towels and warm them about 30 seconds in the microwave. No matter how you warm them, soon as they're warm get them wrapped in foil or place them in a tortilla dish with the lid on. Keep them warm!

Finally, place two stacked tortillas on a plate. Add a dollip of the chipotle lime mayo and spread it over the tortilla. Place a piece of your beer battered codd in the center, and add a bit of shredded cabbage. Fold in half, and garnish with a wedge of lime, and a small sprig of fresh cilantro (which I stupidly forgot, and left sitting in the fridge).

Enjoy, and play with your food. Change it up. Adjust the heat. Make each dish your own. Come back, and share here, what you did, what your favorite dishes are, or if there is something you would like to know how to make, let me know. I'll research, experiment, and do my dead-level best to refine and post any request. No matter what, have fun in your kitchen, and eat well. See you soon in this Fried Okie's Suburban Kitchen!! (((Hugs)--

For the requests, baccon chicken rounds

Hi guys. Been a long time. Due to the unexpected passing of my amazing, and sorely missed precious father-in-law, I not only haven't blogged, I haven't been really cooking, for any other reason than survival. Just this week, four of my 5 children (one my honorary foster) has started school. I find myself alone with just my toddler. I can keep the house clean, keep up on laundry, weed the gardens, and still feel like I an not getting much done. Then, a few days ago, I grabbed my favorite apron, and decided it was time for me to get my rear end back to the kitchen. Batches of breads, a blueberry pie, and baccon chicken rounds were the end result of that decision. After sharing a picture of the chicken, a few friends asked for the recipe. So, I'll share it here, as well.

Let's cook!

Ingredients
4-6 chicken breasts
16 slices of baccon
Minced garlic
6-10 Tbs greated parmesan
1/2 white onion or a large shallot

Fold plastic wrap over each chicken breast.

I like to use large pieces so as the chicken spreads out, it doesn't get uncovered.

My meat mallot mysteriously disappeared, so I used an old rolling pin to pound the chicken breasts as thin as possible.

In between thinning the chicken, cook the baccon until cooked, but don't crisp it up, it will need to bend later!

And of course, drain the baccon on a paper towel, so we can pretend we are removing enough grease to say its not as fattening. But be sure to save the baccon drippings in the pan. You'll need them two more times.

Slice onion/shallot and sautee in the reserved baccon grease. Open plastic and lay 2-2 1/2 slices of baccon on the widest side of chicken breast. Add a bit of minced garlic, some sauteed onion/shallot, and greated parmesan.

Using the plastic wrap to help, roll the chicken up around the baccon like a burrito.

Use a toothpick or two to secure the chicken roll, and seal and brown all sides in the baccon grease. Place in a 300 degree oven. Bake about 20 minutes, until chicken breasts are cooked through.

Boil up your favorite pasta, while the chicken bakes. I found a really wonderful multi-grain corkscrew pasta for this.

In the baccon pan, I warmed a spaghetti sauce and crumbled up remaining baccon to add to sauce.

When chicken is fully cooked remove from oven and allow to rest about 5 minutes.

Lay each chicken roll on a cutting board, and cut into 1" rounds.

Lay over pasta. Today, we used my 2year olds plastic plate for the pictures. No idea why...

Smother with sauce. Alfredo, marinara, spaghetti, or white wine sauce all work.

top with more greated parmesan, and serve with garlic bread, and something green and crisp!
Lastly, please enjoy. It feels good to be back in the kitchen. It's been about a month, and now I feel I'm slowly finding myself again, after the loss of my best friend. Next few post, one will have my father-in-laws famous bbq marinade. Look for it. I hope to see you soon. There is a comment box below, feel free to ask questions, give feedback, or just say hi!