Chicken Parmesan

It's taken awhile, but I finally fine-tuned this recipe to our utter satisfaction! We no longer need to go to a restaurant in order to be satisfied by Chicken Parmesan!

Ingredients

1/3 Cup Grated Parmesan Cheese, divided
1/4 Cup Panko Bread Crumbs
1 Tbsp Parsley
1/2 Tsp Basil
1/4 Tsp Salt
1 Egg, Beaten
2 Chicken Breasts, cut in half
2 Tbsp Coconut Oil
1 Jar Pasta Sauce
2 Tsp Balsamic Vinegar
1/2 Cup Shredded Mozzarella

Directions

1. Heat the pasta sauce and balsamic vinegar on low heat on the stove.

2. Hammer the chicken breasts flat (that's the fun part:). Pat them very, very dry.

3. Heat an iron skillet to medium-high. In the meantime, preheat the broiler in the oven.

4. Combine 2 Tbsp Parmesan, breadcrumbs, parsley, basil, and salt in a shallow dish. Place the beaten egg in a second shallow dish. Dip each piece of chicken in the egg, then press into the breadcrumb mixture.

5. Melt the coconut oil in the skillet. Place the chicken in the oil and cook for three minutes on each side until done.

6. Pour the pasta sauce in the skillet over the chicken. Sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan and the mozzarella. Place skillet in the oven and broil until the cheese melts and browns. Remember to watch it closely!

Serve over spaghetti noodles and spoon on extra sauce.

Strawberry Ice Cream

We make very good use of our ice cream maker around here, and this is our favorite recipe. There are a few "musts" to consider in order to ensure that your strawberry ice cream turns out especially delicious. First, the better your strawberries taste, the better your strawberry ice cream will taste.. duh, right? Second, use very high quality vanilla. If you use cheap vanilla, you'll taste it, and it doesn't taste good. I like to use alcohol-free vanilla in ice cream.

Ingredients

2/3 Pint Fresh, Ripe Strawberries (cut into little pieces)
3 Tbsp Lemon Juice
1/3 Cup Sucanat (regular sugar will work fine, too)
1 Cup Whole Milk
2/3 Cup Sugar
2 Cups Heavy Cream
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract

Directions

1. Combine the cut up strawberries with the lemon juice and sucanat. Stir gently and let sit for two hours or overnight.

2. When the strawberries are ready, whisk the milk and sugar together for two minutes to disolve the sugar. Add the cream, the juices from the strawberries, and the vanilla and combine.

3. Pour the ingredients into the freezer bowl and let mix for 25 minutes. When the time is up, add the strawberries in and mix for an additional 5 minutes. Put the ice cream in a 1.75 quart lidded Pyrex dish and transfer to the freezer immediately.

Mom Tip

Don't take the freezer bowl out of the freezer until the moment you're ready to pour the ingredients into it. The more frozen it is, the better.

Cheddar & Fontina Fondue

A few months ago I found a great deal on a brand new fondue pot on Craigslist and this meal has quickly become a staple at our house. Friday nights are great fondue nights and we look forward to them all week when they're on the menu. Fondue is also great for serving when you have another family over for dinner (and later you can fill it with chocolate!). Every family needs a fondue pot that gets regular use!

We've tried a few different recipes but this one is by far our favorite. The inspiration came from Jen's blog. The most important thing with fondue is using good quality cheeses. If you already have a bottle open, you can substitute half of the stock for a good quality dry, white wine like Chardonnay.

Ingredients

2 Tbsp Butter
2 Tbsp Flour
1 Clove Garlic
1 Bay Leaf
1/8 Tsp Pepper
1/4 Tsp Marjoram
1 Cup Chicken Stock
3 Cups of Shredded Cheese (we use 1 1/2 cups of cheddar and 1 1/2 cups of fontina)

Our Favorite Dippers

Apples
Carrots
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Sourdough Bread
Chicken Apple Sausage

Directions

1. Prepare all of your dippers first: lightly steam the veggies, cut up the apples and bread into cubes, brown the sausages... you won't have time to do it after the fondue is ready.

2. To prepare the fondue, melt the butter in a saucepan. Add garlic and spices and cook for a minute. Add the flour and whisk constantly for one minute. Add chicken stock and whisk until thickened. Add the cheese and stir until smooth. Remove the bay leaf.

3. Transfer to your fondue pot and enjoy!

Mom Tip

Try rubbing a clove of garlic all over the inside of the fondue pot before you add the cheese mixture.

If your fondue gets gloopy, add some lemon juice to the mixture to smooth it.

Best Chicken Tacos Ever

Tonight I made the tastiest chicken tacos I've ever had... I thought I should write down how I did it so I don't forget! I'm pretty sure the ingredient that made these particular tacos so delicious was the homemade chicken stock from the batch I made a few weeks ago. It was the thickest, most gelatinous chicken stock I've ever made... yum! We could taste it in the chicken, it was so flavorful!

I can't recommend store bought chicken stock because the quality is sub-par to homemade. Also, they all contain MSG (even the ones at Whole Foods!). MSG masquerades as all kinds of other ingredients, so you have to be careful. (A quick google search of "MSG ingredients list" will help you out.) Personally, MSG gives me headaches!

Anyway, here's how it went down...

Ingredients

1 Whole Chicken
1 Jalapeno Pepper
1/2 Red Onion, chopped
Coconut Oil
1 Cup Homemade Chicken Stock
Seasoning (a mixture of cumin, oregano, cayenne pepper, salt, black pepper, onion powder, & garlic powder)

Directions

1. Boil a whole chicken for an hour and a half and let it cool on the counter for an hour or two. Take the meat off the bones and gently shredded it with your fingers.

2. Saute a chopped jalapeno pepper and half a chopped red onion in an iron skillet using coconut oil. Then add the chicken, some seasoning, and the homemade chicken stock. Heat it up until the water evaporates off.

Enjoy with black beans, mexican rice, "homemade" tortillas (a la Trader Joe's;) and all the trimmings!