New York Restaurants

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to let you know that I am going to New York, one of my favorite places in the world, with my mom in a couple of days. We have a few dinner reservations planned so far, but are looking for some new suggestions. If you have any recommendations, please post a comment.

p.s. the theater district would be good.

Mouthwatering Chicken Parmesan

SO, on a beautiful night, my dad decided to make us a special Italian dinner. He made us chicken parmesan and a delicious caesar salad. My brother and I love our caesar salads and we always love to critique the salad. Let me tell you, this salad had all of the elements that you look for! The chicken parmesan just melted in your mouth and it had this bubbling layer of scrumptious cheese on top of the smooth tomato sauce. Just writing about it makes my mouth water! Anyway, I am probably making your mouth water too, so here is the amazing recipe which is now a family favorite.

Homemade Chicken Parmesan

Ingredients

2 28-oz cans of Crushed and Ground Tomatoes

4 cloves garlic, chopped

½ bunch of basil

1/2 cup of olive oil

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast

½ lb mozzarella cheese

2 eggs

bread crumbs

pepper

salt

In a saucepan, pour half the oil and bring to medium heat.

Carefully add garlic

When garlic is golden, carefully pour in tomatoes and then basil leaves.

Add a pinch of salt and stir. Bring it down to a low heat and stir occasionally for 20 minutes.

If you are a mutli-tasker you can make the chicken at the same time. If you want to take it easy, wait until sauce is cooked and then follow the next steps.

Put the chicken breasts in between two pieces of wax paper and pound them down. Use a meat tenderizer, or a rolling pin, or anything that will get out your frustrations.

Take bowls. In one, mix the two eggs. In the other, spread the bread crumbs.

Start a frying pan on medium heat and pour in other ¼ cup of oil. Enough to cover the bottom of the pan.

Take each chicken breast and, one at a time, dip in the eggs and then in the bread crumbs. Then, with care, easily place in the hot pan. When you have all four fit in snugly, let it cook to a nice, golden brown. First, about 7 minutes on one side and then about 5 minutes on the other. Be aware that the time in the pan is dependent on how much pounding you did. The less thick the breast, the less time in the pan. Make certain the chicken breast is cooked all the way through.

While you are cooking the chicken, pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.

When the chicken is cooked through, prepare a baking dish by spooning some sauce around the bottom of the dish. Then place the four cooked breasts in the dish. Again, spoon the sauce, generously on each chicken breast. Be generous!

Then, take your mozzarella and, if its shredded, pour it on each breast. If it’s not shredded you can take think slices of the mozzarella and place them on the sauce, on the chicken.

Cook the chicken in the hot oven for 15 minutes and it will look as if you are in Little Italy in any major city in the U.S. Maybe it will look like it would in Italy, but I’ve never been there, so I don’t know.

For heartier eaters, you can serve with some linguine, using the rest of the sauce, but, for sure, this would be delicious with a Caeser Salad. Use your own recipe for now. I’ll publish my recipe in a future posting.

Buon Giorno.

Vibrant Vanilla

My Uncle Andrew was recently visiting us from Norman, Oklahoma. He is a purist and is super passionate about everything he does, so as a gift, he gave me some fresh vanilla beans . He purchased these long, sleek, brown, beans from a local spice store. They came in pretty glass bottles with brown labels. One bottle was from Madagascar and the other was from Mexico. We decided to bake some of our favorite cookies, and instead of using the regular, bottled vanilla extract, we used the vanilla from inside the beans. We carefully sliced opened the long bean and there were multiple, black spots (seeds) inside, waiting to be scraped out. We had to look up the correct equivalent amount to use since our recipe called for vanilla extract. We found different information, but the one we decided to go with, said to use a half a vanilla bean for every teaspoon of vanilla extract. We made the cookies and they turned out wonderful. You could really smell and taste the delicious vanilla. If you do use fresh vanilla, be sure not to throw the skins out because they are very useful! You can use them to flavor your coffee or french toast. I highly encourage you to stop by your local spice store and try some fresh vanilla bean!

Grandpa Bakes Muffins

When my Grandpa Perry was visiting from Florida, I decided there was one thing I had to do with him, and that was BAKE!!! We decided to bake muffins. So, we made Sunny Morning Muffins. They are packed with fruit and are really yummy. Below is the recipe! Hope you enjoy.

Sunny Morning Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 cup strawberries, chopped
• 1 cup sugar, plus 2 tablespoons
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• Pinch ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 ripe banana, mashed
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1 lemon, zested
• 1/2 pint blueberries
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

Special equipment: muffin tin and muffin liners

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a small bowl, mix together strawberries and 2 tablespoons sugar. Let sit 15 minutes until strawberries give off juices.

In a small bowl, mix together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg and salt.

In a large bowl, whisk together the mashed banana, eggs, oil, 1 cup sugar, strawberries, and lemon zest.

Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until combined. Do not over mix. Fold in blueberries and walnuts.

Scoop batter evenly into muffin cups. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of muffin comes out with a few crumbs but not wet, about 30 minutes. Cool on a rack to room temperature.

Credit: Chef: Sunny Anderson, Website: www.foodnetwork.com

Cookie Swap...Yay!

Great news! The cookie swap was a total success!! It was so much fun. We had toffee, peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip cookies, and brown sugar walnut rugelach. There was a good variety of cookies and recipes to be had by all. We played bingo, hide-and-seek, and had a funky dance contest. We dined on tea sandwiches and ate lots of cookies! I highly suggest you have a party like this. The idea is simple and you can have lots of fun coming up with the details.

Snaps from My Favorite Food Shops in NYC

New York City!

On Friday, I am going on a plane to New York City! I am very excited to go even though I have been there before. I love the food in the city because of its many flavors, varieties and colors. I can't wait! I will keep posting about where I have eaten and will post pictures of the food I am eating.