Grilled Chicken with Lemon Basil Pasta

Grilled Chicken with Lemon Basil Pasta

Last night, I didn't have anything planned and I needed a quick easy recipe that I had the ingredients for. I came upon this one while I was searching pinterest. God, I love that site. It's my go to place for recipes and crafts. I love to see pictures of what I am going to make before I spend time making it.

Here is the recipe, courtesy of The Pioneer Woman.

Grilled Chicken with Lemon Basil Pasta

Prep Time:

 10 Minutes

 

Cook Time:

 15 Minutes

 

Difficulty:

 Easy

 

Servings:

 8

Print Recipe

Ingredients

• 4 whole Grilled Chicken Breasts, Sliced
• 1 pound Penne Pasta, Cooked Until Al Dente
• 1/2 stick Butter
• 3 whole Lemons, Juiced
• 3/4 cups Heavy Cream
• 1/4 cup Half-and-half
• 1-1/2 cup Grated Parmesan Cheese (or Romano)
•  Salt And Freshly Ground Black Pepper, To Taste
• 20 whole Basil Leaves, Chopped

Preparation Instructions

Cook pasta, reserving 1 cup of hot pasta water when you drain. Set pasta aside in a colander.

In the same pot, melt butter over medium heat. Squeeze in the juice of 3 to 4 lemons. Whisk together. Pour in cream and half-and-heat. Whisk until hot. Dump in cheese and whisk until melted. Add salt and pepper. Check consistency, adding some of the hot pasta water to loosen the sauce if needed.

Pour pasta and sauce into a large serving bowl. Sprinkle remaining basil all over the top, then add sliced chicken breasts. Serve immediately!

I did however, substitute some things in the recipe. For the half and half, I used skim milk instead. 3 lemons is a bit much, at least for me and I happened to only use three lemons, but I doubled the recipe and the lemon taste was still pretty strong. And because I didn't have fresh basil, I used dried, which worked out just fine.

The dish tasted wonderful and teenagers like it, which was amazing in itself.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Have a wonderful day.

Banana Cake

Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

So I finally got done doing dishes and baking, cooking and making lunch for the hubby (for tomorrow). And I wanted to show you what I made from scratch tonight.

I am not a cake eater, but I do love to make them. I was going to make two round cakes and stack them, but decided because I have a family of four plus any other kid that decides to stop in, that I would just do the quick and easy but not always pretty 9x13 pan. And I am leaving off the nuts. We have enough of those in this family we don't need to add anymore. Ha! Yes I am very lame when it comes to my jokes.

I did two hours of dishes tonight. And I baked for about an hour, plus I did have to do some final touches to tonight's dinner, even though my daughter started it in the crockpot. So basically I have been on my feet since I got home at 415pm. That is 5.5 hours my time. Ugh. But I do love my family, and I love to make stuff for them to eat, although I must say, I haven't felt much like doing anything lately. But this week, I am scheduled to make certain dinners and so far, I am doing well with the set up.

Here is the recipe for this cake 

(by Sweet Revelations, which they adapted from Food.com)

Best Ever Banana Cake

Note: the recipe on Food.com recommends immediately putting the cake in the freezer after removing it from the oven.  I did not follow this step.

• 1 ½ cups bananas , mashed
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• generous pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
• ¾ cup unsalted butter , room temperature
• 2 1⁄8; cups sugar
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 ½ cups buttermilk, room temperature

Preheat oven to 275°.  Grease and flour 3 6 inch cake pans.  You can also make this in a 9 x 13 inch pan.

 

1.  In a small bowl, mix mashed banana with the lemon juice; set aside.  In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda , nutmeg and salt; set aside.

 

2.  In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs, one at a time, then add in 2 tsp vanilla.

 

3.  On low, add the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk.  Stir in banana mixture.

 

4.  Pour batter into prepared pans and bake in preheated oven for one hour and 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.   Unmold on to wire racks and cool completely.

Cream Cheese Frosting

*this makes just enough for two of the cakes

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 pound cream cheese softened
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 pound sifted powdered sugar

For the frosting, cream the butter and cream cheese until smooth.  Beat in the vanilla.  Add icing sugar and beat on low-speed just until combined.  Don’t overbeat.  Sprinkle chopped walnuts over top of the frosting, if desired.

A side note, I don't buy buttermilk, it's way too expensive for the amount I am going to use, so I made my own, sort of. 1 cup of milk plus 1 tbsp of vinegar = buttermilk. Set it aside after you combine it for 5 minutes, it will turn on it's own, then just add it to the recipe. It worked very well and the cake turned our super moist. The milk I used was skim and even though this is a dessert, I like to cut down on the calories as much as possible. I didn't skimp on the butter or the sugar though and this recipe has a lot of that in it!

Thank you for visiting my blog.

If you have any questions please let me know.

Time to go do more laundry. :(

 

Creamy Crockpot Chicken and Broccoli Over Rice

So today my daughter helped me make dinner, that we of course got off of Pinterest. If you know me at all, I am absolutely in love with that site. I find so many awesome things on there. My family does sometimes benefit from the ideas I get off the website.

This recipe came from Picky Palette. I want to give them all the credit. The only thing I changed was no cheddar cheese on the finished product. It was creamy enough and yummy enough, that I saved myself some extra calories. 

Boy was this yummy!

Here is the recipe. 

Creamy Crockpot Chicken and Broccoli Over Rice

3-4 boneless chicken breasts

1 14oz can cream of chicken soup

1 14 oz can cheddar soup

1 14 oz can chicken broth

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon Cajun seasoning (I used Emeril’s brand)

¼ teaspoon garlic salt seasoning (Lawrys)

1 Cup sour cream

6 Cups broccoli florets, lightly steamed, just fork tender ( I cook it in boiling water for 3-4 minutes)

1 Cup shredded cheddar cheese

1. Place soups, chicken broth, salt, Cajun and garlic seasoning into a crockpot over low heat. Whisk until smooth. Place chicken in, pressing to the bottom. Cover lid and cook on low for 6 hours or on high for 3 hours.

2. When chicken is cooked, use 2 forks to shred into bite size pieces. Stir in sour cream and broccoli.

3. Serve over steamed rice and sprinkle with cheese.

4-6 servings

It took exactly 6 hours on low. And the chicken just falls apart.

I used frozen broccoli that I steamed real quick in boiling water. Then added it to the crockpot with the sour cream, on high for ten minutes.