Winter is the season for hot and hearty meals and menu-wise, it’s always been my favorite time of the year. The weather may be cold and grey, but the kitchen is hot and hoppin’. Soups, stews, and pasta dishes make a regular appearance at our evening dinner table. Warm, crusty breads with farm fresh butter are never far behind. Nothing compares to that soul pleasing feeling of being warmed from the inside out by a meal filled with comfort food goodness.
Chicken Marsala is one such cold weather favorite. Wine and poultry are soul mates; I’m convinced of it. Add in a handful of mushrooms and you can add it to my list of favorite holy trinities in the culinary world. I usually make the more traditional version of breasts over noodles, but I thought this go round I might stir things up a bit by twisting it into it’s own unique pasta creation. The result is nothing short of delectable.
Begin your comfort creation by mixing together a little flour, salt and pepper into a baggie or bowl. Toss in a couple cubed chicken breasts and get them get good and coated.
Warm up a pat of butter and a swirl of oil into a sauce pan on high heat. Add the chicken and cook until they start to take on a gorgeous golden brown color.
In the same pan, brown up a handful of mushrooms and onions. Toss in a tablespoon of the leftover flour mixture and coat the veggies well.
Time for a little wine. Add in a hearty pour of marsala and chicken broth. Heat until the mixture begins to thicken. Nom Nom. Now add in a squeeze of fresh lemon, a dollop of dijon and a pinch of rosemary.
Turn the heat down to a simmer and finish it off with a splash of heavy cream and a spoonful of Parmesan cheese.
Toss back in the reserved chicken and you’re ready to plate.
Grab yourself a bowl, dangle a healthy portion of noodles into the bottom and top with the finished chicken and mushroom sauce.
With culinary comfort like this warming my soul, winter is welcome for dinner at our house any night of the week.
This dish will be a part of the Gojee virtual potluck. Starting on Thursday, January 26, you can find this dish along with other potluck dishes fellow gojee contributors shared. Simply jump on over to gojee.com and enter “gojee potluck” into I Crave. You can also follow #gojeepotluck on Twitter. Hope you’ll stop by!
Chicken Marsala Pasta
Yield: 4 Servings (approx. 1.5 Cups each)
Total Time: 30 min
Ingredients:
1/2 Pound Chicken, Cubed
1/4 Cup Flour
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Pepper
3 Tbsp Butter
1 Tbsp Canola Oil
8 Oz. Sliced Mushrooms
1/2 Onion, Chopped
3 Cloves Garlic, Minced
1/2 Cup Marsala Wine
1/2 Cup Chicken Broth
1/2 Lemon, Juiced (about 1.5 tsp)
1 Tbsp Dijon Mustard
1 Tbsp Rosemary
1/4 Cup Heavy Cream
1 Tbsp Parmesan Cheese
Directions:
In a medium sized baggie or bowl, combine the flour, salt and pepper.
Add in the chicken and shake to coat.
In a large saucepan set to medium high, heat up 1 tablespoon of the butter and the canola oil.
Add the chicken to the pan, reserving 1 tablespoon of the flour mixture, and cook until golden brown on the outside with no pink remaining.
Remove the chicken from the pan and set to the side. In the same pan heat up the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter on medium heat.
Add in the mushrooms, onion and garlic. Saute for about 5 minutes or until onions are translucent and cooked.
Sprinkle the reserved flour back in the pan and stir to coat.
Add in the wine and broth and heat until sauce begins to thicken.
Stir in the lemon juice, dijon mustard and rosemary.
Turn the heat down to a simmer and add in the cream and Parmesan cheese.
Toss the reserved chicken back in and stir to coat.
Serve over freshly cooked pasta.
Pesto Pasta with Chicken Bacon and Mushrooms
I just sent my middle child, Alex, off to Kindergarten for the first day today. You think if you’d done it once before it would be a piece of cake the second time, right? I sure did. I managed to get him up and corral both him and his brother through the morning time routine without too much issue (aside from waking Alex and getting him out of bed; a herculean task to be sure). Scott came back to the house for the official send-off and we snapped the first day obligatory pictures. We even made it to the bus stop without incident and Alex, a bit reluctant and apprehensive, boarded with his brother and promptly drove away.
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Chicken Cordon Bleu with Mushroom Sauce
The voting over at the Rice Krispies Facebook page is officially up and running! If you have a minute head over and cast a vote for Team Asheville’s entries. We’re the top four pictures listed. Thanks so much and I’ll let you know the results as soon as they’re announced.
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Cordon Bleu is one of those dishes that instantly takes me back to my childhood days. My family spent all their vacations up in Northern Wisconsin at my grandparents cottage on Rest Lake. We enjoyed summers frolicking in the water and digging never-ending holes to China, and winters planting our tip-ups on the iced over lake in the hopes of catching that one lucky fish. I still remember venturing out on the boat one warm summer morning with my grandfather on a hunt for muskies; one of the biggest and baddest lake fish there is, and the exact moment that one actually started to follow my line towards the boat. I began to reel faster and faster; there was no way I was going to let that fish actually catch my line!
When we arrived home from our fishing expedition, my grandmother had put together a lunch for us of cordon bleu with mushroom sauce. She was a big fan of the Schwan man (still is) and would always have a pack of their cordon bleu on hand. Oh how I loved those chicken filled treats. I used to look forward to visiting my grandma Mimi just so I could get my hands on one of them.
Today my grandmother lives in Arizona and we don’t get out to visit her and my grandfather nearly as much as we’d like. My grandfather’s 87th birthday was a few weeks back and it reminded me of those younger times up at the cottage. This dish is a way to bring back those cherished moments and to say thank you to my grandparents for all the wonderful memories and love they continue to pour over me to this day.
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Mahi Mahi + Salad Fixings+ Homemade Asian Dressing
Put it all together and you have One. Killer. Salad. I have to say, this was some tasty fine dinner. The inspiration for this meal actually came after a last minute decision to head to Le Peep for breakfast after church last Sunday. Going out to breakfast isn’t in our normal routine, but for some reason I was just feeling the need to partake of somebody’s cooking other than my own. And believe me, when the mommy’s got an urge for breakfast, it darn well needs to be honored in this house.
So after consuming more than a few breakfast delights and pretty much rolling ourselves out of the restaurant, my husband proclaimed that a light dinner needed to be in our future in order to counteract the pig out that so shamelessly occurred just a few minutes earlier. Hence, this delicious salad was born.
I know it’s going to sound silly, but my favorite part about this salad is the mandarin oranges. There’s just something about those little orange slices of heaven that get me every time. I could eat them straight out of the can. Ok, who am I kidding, I DO eat them straight out of the can. It’s so bad that I’ll hide them from my kids and eat them when they’re at school just so I don’t have to share. Yes, my name is Julie and I have a mandarin orange problem.
Ok, first up, the dressing. Here’s what you’ll need:
Ingredients Needed:
For the Dressing:
3 Cloves of Garlic, Minced
2 Tbsp of Fresh Ginger
1 Green Onion, Chopped
1/2 Lime, Juiced
3 Tbsp of Honey
1/2 Cup Sesame Oil
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
1/4 Cup of Soy Sauce
/4 Cup of Rice Vinegar
This dressing is so easy peasy, it make me wonder why I don’t make homemade dressing more often. You basically just take everything from the list above, throw it in a blender/processor and hit start. Bango, homemade Asian dressing.
Now, take about a half of a cup of your dressing and throw it in a gallon sized ziploc bag along with your mahi mahi. Close ‘er up, throw it in the fridge and let it marinate for at least an hour if not longer. Be sure to refrigerate your remaining dressing as well. You’ll need that again later on to slather on your finished salad; yum!
Once dinner time is upon you, grab your marinated fish and throw it on the grill until cooked through and then set to the side to keep warm.
Now you can really put anything you’d like in your salad so it is by no means a requirement to have what we used in ours (although, I might disagree with that statement when it comes to the mandarin oranges). Here’s what we threw into our salad:
Ingredients Needed:
For the Salad:
1 Bag of Spinach
1 Bunch of Romaine
1 Handful of Carrots, Chopped
1/2 Pint of Cherry Tomatoes, Halved
1 Handful of Sliced Mushrooms
1 Can of Mandarin Oranges, Drained and Rinsed
1 Small Cucumber, Sliced (or in our case, 1/4 of a really LARGE cucumber)
2/3 Cup of Crumbled Blue Cheese
Throw all your salad fixings in a bowl and voila! Isn’t that beautiful?
To plate your dinner, grab the a plate of salad, toss in a little (or a lot depending on your tastes) dressing and throw a mahi mahi fillet on top. And that’s all there is to it! Grab your wine, grab your salad and enjoy every. last. bite. of your creation. I know we did!
