My New Cocinaware and a Giveaway

Do you own a dutch oven? Other than my chef knife, my most favorite piece of cookware is the dutch oven I recieved as a wedding gift. This versitle piece of cookware is cast iron with a sturdy enamel glaze and not only heats fast, but uniformely as well. This is what makes the dutch oven perfect for sautéing, baking, roasting, braising, or frying. Now days you can buy dutch ovens in a rainbow of colors to coordinate with your kitchen and take it straight from the oven to the table. If you take care of it, a dutch oven will last you a lifetime.

You can imagine how excited I was when H-E-B sent me their new 5.2 QT Round Dutch Oven to try and review. If you don't have a dutch oven, I urge you to go to your local store and check out their new line of Cocinaware that was just rolled out. I made Lemon Chicken in this beautiful cobalt blue dutch oven and I was so impressed with this product. At less than $30 it performed just as well as my more expensive wedding gift. I really appreciated the weight of the pot and lid, you can tell that it's a quality piece of cookware.

The best feature was under the lid. The Cocinaware dutch oven has dimples underneath that continually baste the food while it cooks. This means you don't have to flip a roast halfway through cooking or stop every half hour to spoon liquid over the top of your dish while it's in the oven. It's brilliant!

Click to read more and find out about my giveaway...

Lemon Chicken Fettuccini

Jim requested lemon chicken twice in the past week so I lovingly obliged, but changed it up a bit. Of course! That's what I do. Remember my mom's Lemon Chicken? She coats the chicken with seasonings and flour and bakes it with butter. She serves the chicken breasts covered in sauce and served over rice. I took the same steps, tweaked the method a bit and came up with this summer pasta dish that is bright with lemon and totally satisfying.

I started by rinsing three chicken breasts and trimming the ugly parts off the sides and bottom. You know those odd little pieces that hang off - I like to cut them off with kitchen shears.  Pat the chicken dry and then place in a dutch oven and season with whatever house seasoning you like. I used salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder.

This Dutch Oven is from the new Cocinaware line at H-E-B, and is less than $30! Find out how to win some cool Cocinaware.

To give the chicken some flavors to cook in, I cut a lemon into wedges and squeezed them over the chicken and then threw the lemon in the pot.

Ah, a dish without garlic is a dish without love. Too dramatic? Well, I peeled these four garlic cloves and threw them in whole. Next time, I will probably smash them with the back of my knife and throw them in smashed.  As I left them whole, there was an "essence" of garlic, but I would have liked a more intense garlic flavor.

At this point, I wasn't sure how I would use the chicken breasts. I may leave them whole and place them on top of the pasta and ladle the sauce on top. Instead of pats of butter, I drizzled just a little bit of olive oil over the top and then covered the pot and cooked for 30 minutes in a 350 degrees oven.

While the chickens baked, I added a large pinch of salt to a pot of water and put this on the stove to boil. When I have about 10 minutes till dinner I will drop the pasta and cook it for 8-10 minutes, drain and serve. I used fettuccini, but spaghetti or other type of pasta would work just as well.

The sauce is very important to the dish and ridiculously simply. You can customize this sauce as much as you like. If you want to keep it simple, use 8 ounces of sour cream, a can of cream of chicken soup and 1/3 cup of lemon juice (lemon juice from a bottle would be fine too).

I used 8 ounces of sour cream, white wine, fresh lemons, minced garlic, chopped onion and a can of cream of chicken soup. Here is how I did it.

I ended up only using one half of the onion and dicing on the fine side.

Over medium heat I cooked the onions in a tablespoon of butter.

 I minced two garlic cloves and added those to the onions also.

When the onions are almost translucent and before they start getting too brown, I added a splash of white wine.

This is Bell Springs Chardonnay, a local wine located in Dripping Springs, Texas. It's bright and creamy with hints of lemon which goes so well in this lemon chicken dish.

Ahhh... wish I could send you a whiff of this onion, garlic and wine mixture.  I let this simmer for a little bit until the liquid was nearly evaporated.

 LEMONS! I sliced three, but ended up only needing two lemons to get to 1/3 cup of fresh juice.

Be sure to strain the lemon seeds out.

This is one of those cans you should always have in your pantry - it can be used in so many dishes. In this recipe it gives body and creaminess to my lemon sauce.

After the cream of chicken is stirred in, add the 8 ounces of sour cream.

Stir everything together and taste for seasoning. I added 1/2 teaspoon of pepper and 1/4 cup of the pasta water to thin the sauce a bit. Then turned the stove to low so the sauce stays warm while I finish with the chicken and pasta.

After 30 minutes the chickens are cooked through - pierce with a fork and make sure the juice runs clear. Likewise you can cut with a knife and make sure the meat is no longer pink.

Now it's time to decide how I want to serve the chicken, sauce and pasta.

My game day decision was to shred the chicken with two forks and stir it into the sauce.

When the pasta was finished cooking I plated the fettuccini on the plate first and topped with the lemon chicken sauce and garnished each plate with chopped green onions and a few slivers of lemon.

If you can, be sure to serve the same wine you used in your dish with your meal. The wine will compliment the meal and vice versa.

Five for Friday

For Jim:

1. You picked the kid so he wouldn’t be chosen last
2. Your ability to comfortably fit into any group or situation
3. Even though you didn’t feel good you went to the networking hh
4. Your corny jokes make me laugh
5. The way you ask if you can help with dinner – even though you know the answer is most likely no

Perfect Hollandaise Sauce

Over Labor Day weekend there was an Eggs Benedict-off. That's where my brother Brad and I went head to head in the kitchen and each prepared our "famous" Eggs Benedict. Although our family and friends were too polite to name a clear winner, I can truthfully say that this homemade hollandaise sauce won me the championship trophy. So, there wasn't a trophy...but I imagine if there was it would be a bronze whisk covered in this homemade hollandaise sauce.

There are many many variations on hollandaise, this one I find to be the easiest most fool proof version out there. The proportions below will be enough for 4-6 eggs benedict servings.

To read my poached egg tutorial, go here.

Start by melting 4 tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan over low heat. It's okay if it bubbles, but you do not want the butter to brown, just melt it and keep it warm.

Five for Friday

For Jim:

1. You beat me in saying “I love you” first.
2. You offered to make me a coffee this morning which is really a latte that I like to call a cappuccino – whatever it is called, you know how to make it.
3. You sent me a text when they played our song.
4. You said dinner last night was perfect.
5. You didn’t try to fix my problem when I dumped on you about what a terrible day I had. You listened and then supported me. Thank you love!

 

How to Poach an Egg

I don't know about you, but when we eat out for breakfast I almost always order Eggs Benedict if I see it on the menu. To me, it's a gourmet item and I love to taste the many variations on this classic dish. I've had it topped with seafood specialties like crab and lobster, or the traditional canadian bacon swapped with other proteins like deli ham or bacon. My favorite spin is the Eggs Benedict with a Mexican flair - think spicy hatch chile strips or poblano Hollandaise.

When I made Eggs Benedict for the first time it took me a couple tries to get the eggs poached correctly - so my advice to you would be to start with a dozen. Maybe you have one of those fancy egg poaching machines or have a do-hickey that makes the task foolproof. I didn't use anything fancy, here is what I did...

Five for Friday

For Jim:

1. I love you for keeping your commitments.
2. Holding my hand at the Farmers Market.
3. Opening my door for me like a gentleman.
4. Holding your own while being ambushed at Brix.
5. Trusting me to go into your e-mail.

Matthew West, "Strong Enough"

You must, You must think I'm strong
To give me what I'm going through

Well forgive me
Forgive me if I'm wrong
But this looks like more than I can do
On my own

I know I'm not strong enough to be
Everything that I'm supposed to be
I give up
I'm not strong enough
Hands of mercy won't you cover me
Lord right now I'm asking you to be
Strong enough
Strong enough
For the both of us

Well, maybe, maybe that's the point
To reach the point of giving up
Cause when I'm finally
Finally at rock bottom
Well, that's when I start looking up
And reaching out

Cause I'm broken
Down to nothing
But I'm still holding on to the one thing
You are God
and You are strong
When I am weak

I can do all things
Through Christ who gives me strength
And I don't have to be
Strong enough
Strong enough