Mommy Gratitude: May 2009

I know I have been only posting sweets lately so here is a great dinner idea that I made the other night and everyone just loved it. Plus I got a little help with this dinner that gave it that extra burst of, "kiss the cook" flavor!

It all started the night before, my wonderful husband took his girls Aneley, Amaya and myself to dinner at a great family restaurant chain, I'm sure everyone has heard of. We had a nice meal and packed all of our leftover to go...including the the bread, olive oil and herb paste. (Please focus your attention on the herb paste.) We ate the leftovers the next day for lunch and...realizing the potential of the herb paste decided to marinate a small pack of boneless skinless chicken breasts (which I cut into small pieces) with the robust really aromatic herb paste that is a mixture of rosemary, time, basil, and blah blah blah the recipe is coming.

Okay so I marinated the chicken in the herb paste and extra virgin olive oil and add a small amount of kosher salt and white pepper. The chicken marinated for about two hours, you could definetly marinate for longer, but no more than over night. I just happened to have some great sundried tomatos in the fridge so I julienned those. But first the big reveal...scroll down

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Yup...Carrabas provided my kick butt marinade herb paste. (Knock off Recipe is at the bottom.)

So thanks to Carrabas! Yes, Carrabas Italian Grill helped me make a fabulous dinner! Carrabas serve's their guests warm bread and extra virgin olive oil for dipping. They make this very distinct and fabulous herb paste that you mix in with the olive oil. We love it and the waitress was nice enough to pack it for me to take home. She had no idea the hook up she was giving me.
Okay the recipe:

2 cloves of garlic minced
1 pack boneless skinless chicken breast (marinated as I said above)
1 cup julienne sundried tomato
1 1/2 cup white wine (picture below, this is definetly a really great bottle of wine, if you can find this buy lots of it AMZING!!!!!)
1/2 cup sour cream ( I used sour cream because I didn't have heavy cream, you can use either or get facny with ricotta the results are the same.)
1/4 cup parmesan
S&P TT (salt & Pepper, season To your Taste or liking)
2 tablespoons of butter

Ready, we're going to saute... In a sauté, all the ingredients are heated at once, and cooked quickly. To facilitate this, the ingredients are rapidly moved around in the pan, either by the use of a spatula, or by repeatedly jerking the pan itself (sauté literally means "jump", a description of the motion of the ingredients as they are being cooked).

In a nice size saute pan on med/med high heat -add butter and garlic first, then chicken and sundried tomatos a minute later.

Now saute.....Next we are going to create the sauce right in the pan. Once the chicken is browned add the remaining ingredients, this is called deglazing. (Deglazing is a cooking technique for removing bits of food from a pan in order to make a sauce with them.) You will notice the wine and sour cream will cool the pan down. Stir pan until pan returns to a simmer. Cover turn heat to low. Cook for 10-15 minutes or until chicken is well done, and sauce has thickened. If you think you don't have enough sauce repeat the above steps add more wine and sour cream.

SIDE CONVERSATION--Definetly have more of this Wine! It's a French Vouvray (grape variety) from the Domaine de Vaufuget vineyards in France, but it's imported by Monsieur Touton Selection out of NY. I'm not remembering the year right now, but no matter. It is such a great tasting medium body very flavorful easy glass of white wine. A little fruity, perfect with chicken. But check the alcohol 11.5 %, which doesn't over power the great flavor. This is a wonderful white wine, like I said if you see this in the store buy lots of it, a great one to "show off" with, everyone will love this wine!!!!! (LINK TO BUY BELOW)

I served this yummy creation with steammed broccoli. (Amaya, and Aneley's favorite!)

And.... Roasted Red Potatos a really simple recipe. I started byusing a lined cookie sheet with foil to make clean up easy.

Cut into medium pieces, washed unpeeled red potatos
Cut 1/2 red onion into medium pieces
Toss all with olive oil. (I like extra virgin or canola, your choice, any will do. This is done to keep potatos from sticking to foil.)
Season with fresh or dried herbs and S &P-TT (any herb or combination will do depends on your mood)

You could add red or green peppers to this as well. I really like the flexablity of this recipe, you might try pasta instead of the potatoes just pour the chicken over pasta. What is super cool to me is taking something that has tons of flavor (Carraba's Herb Paste) and using in your own recipes. SOoooooo here it is the knock off recipe I found to make your own herb paste.

Carrabba's® Bread Dipping Spice
Ingredients:
1 T minced fresh basil
1 T chopped fresh parsley
1 T minced fresh garlic
1 t dried thyme
1 t dried oregano
1 t ground black pepper
½ t minced fresh rosemary
½ t kosher salt or ground sea salt
¼ t crushed red pepper
½ t olive oil
1/8 t fresh lemon juice
Combine all the ingredients, except oil and lemon juice in a small food
processor or coffee bean grinder. Chop briefly until all ingredients are about
the same size.
Stir in oil and lemon juice.
To serve, combine about 1 ½ t spice blend to 3 to 4 T olive oil on a small
dish. Dip sliced bread in mixture.