Flattened Chicken Breasts with Piquant Basil Sauce

Oh my. Yet again I have disappeared from the bloggosphere. But I can for sure say that I am now back for good. How can I say this? Well, my semester ended and I earned another 4.0 GPA. And I no longer have to stress about last minute deadlines and PowerPoint presentations and reading philosophies. I actually even cooked tonight. And I'm not talking spaghetti. But I'll get to that in a minute.

First, let me point you in the direction of the lovely Susan over at Not Quite June Cleaver. I won her April Spring giveaway and she sent me the cutest apron ever!! My wonderful friend A is modeling it for me because unfortunately my physique trends more towards Julia Child's than Giada De Laurentis. But it's a beautiful apron and my friend A loves it tremendously and I have a wee bit of apron envy. I also received a neat vintage pie tin, a recipe booklet, and some very cool heirloom seeds. Thanks Susan!

The other neat thing Susan did was to post this delicious pie recipe. See the Brain's friend Mac just opened a pizza joint and bakery called The Pie Factory (which if you're ever in Sandusky you should check out because it's seriously delicious and won second place in the Sandusky Pizza Bake Off!) Anywho, Mac has a delicious raspberry cream pie. And I keep wanting to go buy it, even though I don't like pie typically. So I was telling Susan about it and she gave out a recipe that's similar. The crust on Mac's pie is a shortbread crust, but I like Susan's too. Her recipe is here.

Ok, so today has been all about 7th grade. Remember 7th grade? Awkward. Uncomfortable. Hormones running amok. Still a kid, but not really. Well, today one of the 7th graders I taught took his rifle (hunting is very big here and all the kids seem to have rifles) and stole the neighbor's truck and last it was on the news he's driven to Kentucky. This kid is a good kid. He had a little trouble focusing in class, but the other kids seemed to like him and he seemed to enjoy them too. Unfortunately they searched his locker and found his diary and there are 31 students and faculty that he "threatened" in this diary. Now the media is calling this a "hit list". I challenge you to look at any 13 year old kid's diary and not find scribbles about how they don't like people. I'm fairly certain that my entire diary in 7th grade was filled with ramblings about how much I loved Chris S. and Brian B. and multiple pages on how John M. was a big fat jerk. And Mrs. Juntenan was a horrible teacher. (I lost touch with Brian, Chris and John by 9th grade and I'll still tell you that Mrs. Juntenan was the very worst teacher I've ever had.) And besides the boy asked a family member to watch after his pet turtle. He's not the twitchy could-be-killer the media is making him out to be. So I'm worried about the kid and I'm starting to get annoyed at stupid hillbilly people making ignorant comments on the local newspaper website.

Then, my best friend T. is going through a divorce. Her hopefully soon to be ex husband is a real jerk and she's having a hard time. So by the time I got off the phone with her and had heard about the 7th grade boy, I needed to pound something. I chose chicken breasts. I was spending some serious time searching through my plethora of cookbooks and I wasn't finding anything good until I remembered this recipe my friend Scott made for me when we both worked at Victoria's Secret in Chicago. We had both picked up Celebrating the Midwestern Table by Abby Mandel on clearance at Borders and he invited me to his apartment for dinner. It was common back then for him and I to invite each other over for dinner. It was always good company and good food, and the best cheap wine we could afford. We were poor college kids after all.

So flattening these chicken breasts had dual purpose. I got my worry and frustration out and it took me back to the happy days of college in Chicago. And the chicken was exactly as good as I remembered it. Tomorrow will be a better day, it has to be, I still have one breast left over for lunch!

Flattened Chicken Breasts with Piquant Basil Sauce

adapted from Celebrating the Midwestern Table

4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves

2 tsp honey

2 Tbsp Dijon mustard

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

6 Tbsp chicken broth

cooking spray

salt and pepper to taste

2 Tbsp julienned basil leaves

One at a time, place a chicken breast half between two pieces of plastic wrap and pound it to about 1/8 inch thinness. Repeat with the remaining breasts. Place on a plate and set aside.

Combine the honey, mustard, vinegar, and chicken broth in a small dish and set aside.

Spray a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray and sprinkle the chicken breasts with salt and pepper. Place the breasts seasoned side down in the hot skillet two at a time. Cook for 2 1/2 minutes. Sprinkle salt and pepper on the top (uncooked) side and gently flip over. Cook for 2 1/2 more minutes until done. Transfer the cooked breasts to a platter and tent with foil. Repeat with the remaining two breasts.

Once all the breasts are cooked and on the platter, add the honey mixture to the hot skillet. Cook for about 20 seconds until slightly thickened. Return the breasts to the skillet, spooning the sauce over them. As soon as they are warmed through, transfer them to a warm serving platter and garnish with the julienned basil. Serve hot.

Apple Pie

It's fall! I happen to really really like fall. But every fall, I start to feel bad. Because there's the one project that up until now has eluded me. My greatest downfall as a housewife. Well that and vacuuming. Man I hate vacuuming. But doesn't my front door look pretty? My greatest downfall has been pie making. I suck at it.

Well I did until now. I went grocery shopping and decided I would do something nice for the Brain. He loves pie. I don't. So there's lots for him when I make it and usually he forces it down. There have been some really bad pies that have come out of my oven. Burnt ones. Soggy ones. Fairly transparent ones. I've even screwed up using the already made roll out crust.

But I've been looking at all the apples in the store and I decided to give it one last go. The Joy of Cooking recipes for pies haven't turned out so well for me before though so I knew I didn't want to retry them. Finally I remembered that in the midst of all my fancy cookbooks, I had a big red Betty Crocker cookbook. You know the one I'm talking about. The one that everyone's mom has. I think my mom gave me hers actually. I figured you can't go wrong with Betty Crocker. I was right!

For the first time ever, I created a pie that was beautiful. And the Brain kept saying from the living room. "This is a good pie! A DAMN good pie!" I almost made another one on the spot. Except I didn't have any more of the roll out pie dough and I wasn't about to learn how to master crust the same day that I finally make a good pie.

Apple Pie

from the Betty Crocker's Cookbook

Pastry for 9-inch two crust pie

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

dash of salt

6 cups thinly sliced, peeled apples (I used a combination of Gala and Granny Smith)

2 Tbsp unsalted butter

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Line pie plate with one half of the pastry. Mix sugar, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in apples. Mound apple mixture into pie plate. Dot with butter. Cover with top crust, poke with fork and cut a steam hole in the center. Cover edges with 3-inch strips of aluminum foil to prevent excessive browning; remove foil during last 15 minutes of baking. Bake until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slit in crust, about 45 minutes.

Happy Pi Day! Have some Bourbon.

Yes I am a geek. I'll say it proudly. I have a bachelors in statistics and I know that Pi, π, commonly known as 3.14 is merely an approximation for a never ending, never repeating number. It is also one of the most important mathematical constants. It represents the ratio of any circle's circumference to it's diameter. It is also the ratio of a circle's area to the square of it's radius. It's where the pie are squared formula comes from. HAHAHAHAHAHA! math humor. You gotta love it.

So it's Pi Day. Get it? 3.14? March 14? Math geeks get ridiculously excited about silliness like this. Just like October 23rd is Mole Day. OK this one might be a little harder, but if you think of Avogadro and his constant, another of the most important mathematical constants, you should be able to get it.

So yeah. I'm a geek. And I tried to think what kind of pie geeks would eat. And I came up with a few ideas. The Statistics and Math geeks I hung out with in college tended to drink a lot, party hard, and stay up the entire night before an exam eating pizza, drinking beer and learning the concepts of multi-variable calculus from the smartest girl in class who happened to be stoned at the time. She's now a very good math professor, but I'm not telling where.
Geeks like to drink. My friend S has an aeronautical engineering degree and works on tertiary Internet systems. I don't even understand what that means, and she's explained it to me numerous times. She is the Queen Geek. And in the days were both single we could get plowed on some very nice wine or good quality beer.

My whole family seems to be engineers and they all like to drink. Seriously, Mom, Dad, Step dad, Uncle J., Uncle J., Uncle T., Grandpa, Papa, Great Uncle Bernard. These are a bunch of engineers who all like their booze. Heck some of them were deans of engineering at very good schools. I should point out here before Mom gets annoyed that to say they like their booze does NOT mean that they are all alcoholics.

My sister Super G is also a major geek. She actually graduated from college in 4 years (it took me 10- my geekdom didn't come easy) and she has a combined math and Spanish literature bachelors degree, and a master's degree in education. She teaches high schoolers in Brooklyn mathematical concepts like spacial geometry through quilting. She also likes her booze.

And the Brain. Yeah, he's a lawyer. But did you know he was a mechanical engineer before he became a lawyer? It's really funny coming from a family of engineers, because I can recognize that he THINKS like an engineer. He approaches problems logically and in a step by step fashion. Analyzing away. He, the love of my life, is a big geek. He also really likes his bourbon.
So today for Pi Day, I made a Bourbon Pie. Yes, you read that right. I didn't know it existed either. I happened to be leafing through the Joy of Cooking last night, wishing I was more prepared because a pot pie cannot be eaten on a Friday in Lent. And although I found a Fish Pie recipe, I wasn't quite that brave. So Bourbon it is.

The decision was cemented when I went to the doctor today and he surpassed my worst case scenario. My surgery is set for March 25th. The best case would be a little teeny surgery. But they measured me for a brace while I was in the office. And given what the doctor implied, most likely I'm looking at months on crutches.

Bourbon it is.

Bourbon Chocolate Pie
sort of from The Joy of Cooking

One 9 inch prebaked pie shell in pan.*

4 large eggs
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup honey
5 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp bourbon
2 oz. dark chocolate chips
2 oz. semisweet chocolate chips
2 oz. white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375° F.

Whisk together the eggs, sugar, corn syrup, honey, butter, salt and bourbon. Mix in all of the chocolate. Pour into prepared pie shell. Bake for 35 minutes until the pie is set. Cool the pie until firmed. Slice and serve.

I topped mine with Black Walnut Ice Cream.

* I purchased my pie shell, so I'm not eligible for the Pi Day Pie Roundup at Kitchen Parade. Go check it out though. There are some really yummy pies listed.

Pie with the Daring Bakers

So part of the reason I started this blog was so that I could join that super cool group of Daring Bakers. Over the last several months, I've watched them make all sorts of daring and fantastic things, where I alternately commented to myself, "I could do that if I had to", or "Oh I bet that's really good to eat". Last month I happily challenged myself, with delicious results, making the Yule Log. So this month I eagerly awaited the secret announcement of what we were going to make. The lovely Jen, The Canadian Baker who's hosting this month declared we would be making Lemon Meringue Pie!

gulp

Pie. "Oh boy," I thought. "I do not want to make pie." I don't like pie. Pie has the dreaded one two punch of fruit and crust. Crust is tasteless and if made wrong gummy. And fruit is yucky. My mom can make excellent pies. She used to whip out blueberry pies and apple pies all summer. Every year for her birthday instead of cake she would have cherry pie. When I was young she would make lemon meringue pies piled high with yummy meringue. Wait a minute I thought. Out of all the pies, I actually don't mind lemon meringue pie. It's not so bad, other than the crust part. Maybe this would work out OK.

Crust has always been my nemesis. I have had several people try to show me how to make crust. And always, when attempting it by myself it fails. The edges burn. The top becomes transparent. It's miserable. My mom suggested I try Grandma's secret recipe (Jiffy Pie Crust Mix). Instead I started trying the Pillsbury refrigerated already made pie crust. I can't even say that always turns out for me. My poor poor husband loves pie and I just haven't been able to deliver. He says I get an A for effort, but still it has been a crushing defeat in my baking skills.

So imagine, if you will, my trepidation when Lemon Meringue Pie was announced to be our challenge this month. That is a challenge indeed. But I decided that this was the nature of the beast. That I would have to try at least to make this lemon meringue pie. As word started to spread, in not so polite fashion, about how people were having trouble with this recipe, two thoughts came to mind. First, I was determined that I would succeed at this if it killed me, because I felt so bad that so many people were being so negative about the recipe. And second, I had better make this early because so many people were having trouble and pies are definitely not the easiest thing in the world for me to bake.

So after carefully taping my recipe to the cupboards and measuring as exactly as I could, I set out to make the crust. It has butter in it. I'd never seen a crust recipe with butter in it. I love butter. Pie crust with butter in it couldn't be that bad. I'd just think of it as a cookie. That made me have less of an aversion to baking it. And really when all was said and done, it tasted more cookie like than any pie crust I've ever made before. Unfortunately the recipe is for a 10inch pie. I don't have a 10inch pie pan. Walmart didn't sell them. So I went with a 9inch pie and 11 little tartlettes. Basically I squished leftover crust in square cupcake molds. Then I stuck them all in the oven with beans to weight them down and waited until they were golden brown. For the sake of making sure they were done, I sampled one of the tartlette crusts. Not too shabby, I thought, for pie crust anyway.

Next came the filling. Again I measured carefully, horrified by the amount of cornstarch. Carefully I cooked the filling and then it happened. I came to the point where I've seen thinner wallpaper paste and it kept getting thicker and how was I going to tell if this stuff was boiling because holy crap it was thick and bubbles weren't going to be able to get to the surface! Finally, after what seemed like hours, but was probably only about a minute or two, a bubble came to the surface and I declared it boiled. Then with the eggs tempered and added it was a beautiful yellow color. By the end it tasted so delicious and lemony that I was back to my early thought of merely, oops, forgetting the crust and just eating the filling and meringue. Shoot, I wouldn't mind just eating the filling.

I filled my 10 remaining tartlette shells with a blob (that would be the technical term) each of the lovely lemon filling and spooned the rest into the pie. Meringue has never been a problem for me so I happily whisked the living daylights out of my egg whites to form pillowy white meringue. Slapping that meringue on the pie and the little tarts was a lot of fun. Being that my pie had actual come out, shall we call it, "rustic" from my inability to crimp correctly, I thought it would look ridiculous to try piping and getting all fancy. So I just spread it on with a spatula and tried to make as many happy little peaks as I could. I asked the Brain if I could borrow his blowtorch, but he made me use my tiny little kitchen torch and supervised to make sure the only things I was toasting were the pie and the tartlettes.

Over all, I'm super pleased with how the pie and tartlettes came out. They were delicious. I know, pie being delicious is a concept I'm trying to work my brain around. I gave the big pie to my friend S. who's family devoured it. The Brain and I each had 2 of the tartlettes and stuck the rest in the freezer. Every so often we'd pull 2 out to thaw while I'd make dinner and we'd have a lovely dessert.

So thank you Jen for a fantastic challenge that I can honestly say I would have never tried if I hadn't joined the Daring Bakers. And I'm glad I tried it. For the recipe check out Jen's blog. And for the hundreds of other Daring Bakers and their attempts at Lemon Meringue Pie check out the Daring Baker Blogroll, here.