Elle's New England Kitchen

Where to start today? I guess with the food, since that's what we're here for. :) Two nights ago, we had Parmesan Crusted Chicken with Greens and Lemon Vinaigrette. It's one of our favorites, another tried and true. The recipe is from Ina Garten. I love her recipes! I've never had one fail, and her stuff ranges from "pull out all the stops for guests" to "let's have a bowl of soup, salad and bread for dinner." You can look at the books of hers that I have in my Amazon shop.

It's really simple, too! And you can feel good serving it to guests--it's special enough for company. The chicken is dipped in flour, then egg, then a combination of bread crumbs and fresh grated parm. Try to grate the parm finely, because you want it to stick to the chicken, and mix well with the bread crumbs. The vinaigrette takes maybe two minutes to whip up, and is tossed with the greens at the last second. Then the cool, tangy greens are piled over the warm chicken. The tastes and textures all come together for a delicious dinner.

You can also see it on Canarygirl's blog. Her photos are awesome! And her food, omg, her food is the best! Want to torture yourself with some good food porn? Go check out her site--you won't be sorry!

Parmesan Crusted Chicken and Lemon Vinaigrette with Fresh Greens

Ina uses arugula, but this is good with any mixed greens or even spinach, as we usually have it.
This serves 6, but usually boneless chicken comes in packs with 3 half breasts (it's like the hot dog/hot dog bun ratio--wtf!),
and I fillet them rather than pounding them out, and I still end up with 6 pieces--good for
leftovers. Less work, faster cooking time, and it doesn't dry out.

Side note on filleting:

I always fillet chicken breasts. They cook faster, so they don't have time to dry out.
Well, I suppose they could, if you really try to overcook them, but
they only need a few minutes per side. If they're thin, 2-3 minutes per
side is good, and if they're thicker, like the kind you get from "new
and improved" mutant-sized chickens, they take about 5-6 minutes per
side. And it's so easy to fillet them, too! Just put your chicken on a
cutting board, get a good sharp fillet knife, and place your palm over
the chicken breast, like the way you're supposed to cut a bagel but no
one ever does? "Hello? 911? Bagel emergency! But please stop off first
and get me a new bagel...I seem to have ruined this one..." So you've
put your palm over the top, and then you slice the breast horizontally
from the thick end of the breast, to the thin one. See? Easy, and
injury free!

Back to the recipe!


1/2 lb    fresh arugula (3 large bunches) OR greens of your choice
1/4 cup    fresh squeezed lemon juice (2 lemons)
1/2 cup     olive oil
1/2 tsp    kosher salt
1/4 tsp    fresh ground black pepper
1/4 lb    chunk of parmesan
6    boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 cup    flour
1 tsp    kosher salt
1/2 tsp    fresh ground pepper
2    extra large eggs
1 1/4 cup    seasoned bread crumbs
1/2 cup    freshly grated parm cheese
1 Tbs    butter
2-3 Tbs    olive oil



Wash and dry your greens.
In a small bowl, whisk the lemon juice, oil, salt and pepper.
Set aside to toss with greens right before serving.
That couldn't be any easier, right?  Now on to the chicken...
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Parmesan Crusted Chicken

Pound the chicken, or fillet it like I mentioned above. (this is really
important for fast cooking and juicy chicken.)
Combine flour, salt and pepper on a plate.
In a bowl, beat the eggs with 1 tbsp water.
On a second plate, combine the bread crumbs and parm.


Dredge the chicken in the flour, dip in the egg, and then dredge in the
crumb/parm mixture, pressing lightly.


Heat the butter and olive oil in a large skillet. Cook the chicken for 3-4
minutes on one side, depending on thickness, then turn and do the same (3-4
minutes) on second side until no longer pink and nicely golden brown.
Toss the salad greens with enough vinaigrette to coat them, add more if you
like.
Place chicken on dinner plate, then place a mound of salad over each chicken
breast. Shave some parm with a vegetable peeler over the greens and serve immediately.

First up--guacamole! Is there anyone that doesn't love fresh, cool, chunky guacamole? Anyone? Bueller? Ok, I guess there's gotta be at least a couple of people that don't like it. So more for us!

Guacamole is one of the easiest, and most satisfying things to make. It's so freaking good. The trick is to get good avocados. I always get Hass avocados, but in a pinch, the bigger, green ones are good, too. You can read everything you ever wanted to know about avocados here. If you're buying Hass, look for the darker, almost black ones, that yield a bit to a little squeeze. If they're all hard and green, you can ripen them at home pretty quickly in a paper bag. But be careful--they're funny little things and go from "We're ripe, yay!" to "Um, we're just going to lie here and get moldy...in the next sixty seconds, ok?" ugh!

So cut them in half carefully, from top to bottom, whack the pit with your knife, carefully! and twist it out. Take a knife and carefully cut lines vertically and horizontally while the halves are still in the peel. Then run a spoon under and around the flesh and scoop it out. Did I mention to be careful? Please do!

So here we go! I've made this so many times that I don't use a set recipe or measurements. You can eyeball your avocado/tomato/onion ratio. And if you hate tomatoes or despise onions (but why would you?) you can skip those. Your guacamole won't mind.

Guacamole

3 avocados
1 lime
1 or 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 medium tomato, chopped and seeded
1/2 a small onion (red, white, sweet--doesn't matter)
1 jalapeno, remove seeds and ribs if you want it mild--leave them in if you like it hotter
chopped cilantro
coarse salt

Get your avocados ready, and put the chunks in a medium bowl. Cut the lime in half and squeeze the juice from one half over the avocado. Add the garlic to the bowl and mash it all up some more with a fork, but leave some chunks--chunks are good!

Add the tomato and onion and some salt, then cilantro and jalapeno. Oh, leave out the cilantro if you hate it-- I'll forgive you. Mix it up and give it a taste, and add more lime juice if it needs it. I usually use almost one whole lime.

When you've got it just right, cover it and put it in the fridge to let the flavors mingle amongst themselves. About 1/2 an hour or so. But if you're like us, you'll grab a bag of corn chips and sample some (ok, a lot) before it even hits the fridge. And don't bother with this business of sticking an avocado pit in the guacamole to keep it greener, longer. It's a lie. From the Save the Avocado Pit People--SAPP, for short. Put a bit of plastic wrap right on the surface, and keep it in the fridge. It'll last into the next day, but no longer than that. And if it's a little discolored on top, just give it a stir.

Serve this with chips, in wraps, over a spicy salad, on tacos, in burritos, etc.



Next up--The Foodie Blogroll! Have all you food bloggers joined yet? What are you waiting for? It's a very cool way to get more exposure for your blog, give you more traffic, and a good way to get to know other foodies like yourselves. PLUS you'll find more great blogs to read!

There are three requirements:

1) Your blog must be at least one month old with at least five posts. (I joined one month to the day after I started blogging, hehe.)

2) Your blog must be at least 80% about food.

3) You have to put the Blogroll in your sidebar in plain sight where it can be seen by Jenn, the genius who started it all. It's nice and not in-your-face. See it in my sidebar, there on the right?

Here's a blurb from Jenn, on Foodieblogroll.com:

Why Should I join The Foodie Blogroll? What’s in it for me?

The Foodie Blogroll is the first of its kind and is one of the fastest growing online communities for foodies. With over 1000 members spanning the globe in less than a year, there is a reason for its popularity. It is the first blogroll created just for foodies like you. When I started my food blog, I went looking for a blogroll for food and cooking related websites and there were none to be found. So I decided to create my own! This is all about building the best community online for foodies! Imagine what having over 1000 websites linking to you can do for your blogs traffic and Google or Technorati ranking.

A great benefit for joining is a forum for members (and other foodies alike) to hang out with each other and get to know each other and talk about our favorite subject – FOOD. There are also contests and your blog could also be featured as part of my Finest Foodies Friday – where I feature the best blogs from the Foodie Blogroll! If you are not a member, you can’t be featured.

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I pretty much always have music on when I cook. 99% of the time. Sometimes, it's too noisy even to have music on. Well, it's noisy ALL the time here, with four kids, kid's friends, and a zoo of pets, but sometimes, I need any quiet I can get, hehe.

What am I currently listening to every single day? Across the Universe. I just can't get enough of it! It's funny, because I've never been a Beatles fan. Ever. But I really wanted to see the movie, and I just fell in love. I fell in love with the characters, the story, and the music. I'm hooked. Even though I'm on a new lap top, and it has crap speakers (wtf?! gotta take care of that, soon!), it still sounds great.

Go to Amazon and give it a listen. It's really good.