Tag Archives: lemon

Creamy Lemon Pesto Chicken

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Before I give you the link to this evening’s Pampered Chef dinner, I have to tell you first that I changed the cooking process. The ingredients and amounts are all the same (with the exception of my improvised basil and citrus rub, and the chicken) but the way I cooked the chicken and sauce is different. Here is the link to the recipe.

In the instructions it says to microwave everything and to be honest, I’m not a big fan of microwaving food. Leftovers yes, but raw meats? Not so much.

I used boneless and skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite size pieces. For the basil rub I used whatever lemon rind I had left over (you need about 2 tsp of lemon rind for the sauce but you can probably get more than that out of one lemon) and about a tsp of lime rind. With my fingers I rubbed the rinds together with about a tbsp of dried basil leaves and I coated the chicken pieces with that.

For the sauce I melted the butter in a saucepan over medium heat and then added the flour and stirred until it was nice and thick. Next I added the lemon rind, garlic, and milk. I cooked that for about five minutes and then I added the homemade pesto Jay’s mom gave us. I’m not sure if there was salt in the pesto so the sauce turned out a little bland but very flavourful so I would suggest you taste the sauce and add salt to your liking. I added the chicken pieces to that same saucepan, covered it, and continued to cook everything on medium heat for about 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. While the chicken cooked I made the pasta noodles – I used fettuccine.

I really liked this meal but I think the sauce would be much better suited for shrimp. Even as I made the sauce I could visualize shrimp in it so keep that in mind if you ever feel inclined to try this Pampered Chef recipe.

Garlic Roast Chicken with Rosemary and Lemon

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I bought Rachael Ray’s Cooking ‘Round The Clock a few years ago and since then I’ve made a little over a handful of her recipes. Why haven’t I made more than that? I think my theory is to stick to recipes that looks exceedingly simple and require easy to obtain ingredients.

This has got to stop. Last night I broke out of my restricted Rachael Ray Rolodex of recipes and I made her Turbo Classics Rosemary Lemon Chicken with Pesto Mashed Potatoes. I really can’t explain why I never made this before as it was ridiculously easy to make. I think I have an aversion to buying fresh rosemary because I never use it all and it ends up going bad.

Anyway, please do make this for dinner if and when you want something warm, comforting, and most importantly absolutely delicious. The smell of the chicken as it comes out of the oven is mouth-watering. And where did she get the idea to mash potatoes with pesto? Genius!

Recipe for the chicken can be found here. The potatoes recipe can be found here.

Note – I used chicken thighs instead of chicken breast as I find breast a bit too dry for my taste.

Lemon Squares

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Several weeks ago, after embarking on the ludicrous writing adventure, I found myself stuck. Writer’s block. So what did I do? I baked. I procrastinate by baking. And thanks to the lovely AsiaJo over at Frock and Fork, I found exactly what I needed to make on that day of mental stuckness. Lemon Squares (recipe here). Let them cool completely as they are quite soft when they come out of the oven. These easy to make squares were so delicious and perfectly sweet. Addictive too. I had to hide them so I wouldn’t eat them all in one sitting.

Perfect Party Cake

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I believe it was over a year ago that my friend sent me a link to this Perfect Party Cake on Tartelette. Since then I had been looking for an excuse to make the cake but I could never seem to get around to making it. The recipe is originally from Baking From My Home by Dorie Greenspan and now I’m simply dying to buy this book!

Over the weekend I celebrated my birthday and I took that opportunity to make myself and my family this amazing cake. I don’t know why but I think I was a little intimidated by the recipe and the cake itself but after putting the finished product on my cake stand, I thought, “That was easy!” Well, for the most part.

Because I didn’t have 4 inch cake pans, I made two 9 inch cakes. This was probably the most annoying part because my oven is incredibly tiny so I had to bake the two 9 inch cake batters one at a time.

In the recipe it says to use “seedless chocolate raspberry” preserves and I had no idea what that meant and I also couldn’t find that at the grocery store. What I did was to melt about half a cup of semi sweet chocolate chips and I mixed that with half a can of raspberry pie filling. I didn’t use rhubarb as the recipe says.

Overall, the cake was amazing but so very rich. I was struggling to finish my slice. As Jay said, “This is the kind of cake you can only eat one slice per week.” My little sister disagrees, “You can eat two slices per day.” I think I could probably eat one tiny slice per day. I’ll definitely be making this cake again but next time I’ll be changing the filling and I might make a lighter frosting.