Orange Pine Nut Chicken

Orange Pine Nut Chicken

4 boneless chicken breasts
1/4 cup oj
1/4 cup white cooking wine
1 T olive oil
1 T fresh parsley, chopped
1 tsp. garlic, minced
1 tsp. grated orange peel
1 tsp. dreid thyme
1 T honey
1/3 cup pine nut


Mix all ingredients except chicken, honey and pine nuts together in bowl. Place chicken in freezer bag and pour marinade over chicken. Turn to coat. Refrigerate for at least an hour. Remove chicken from freezer bag, reserving marinade. Grill chicken over med. heat, until chicken is tender and no longer pink. While chicken is grilling, toast pine nuts on a cookie sheet in 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes, until lightly browned. In small saucepan, combine reserved marinade and honey. Bring to full boil and continue boiling for two minutes. Place grilled chicken on a serving platter and pour sauce over chicken breasts. Top with toasted pine nuts and serve.

Baptism Cookies

Our family friend, Deb, is quite possibly the best baker I know. Her sour-cream coffee cake is to-die-for and her cut-out cookies always turn out perfectly. We use that recipe and cut them out to cross shapes for our kids' baptism parties. We're hoping to have another one of those within a few weeks here so I thought I would post that recipe. Although these can't quite be considered healthy, at least they have all "real ingredients" rather than margarine or shortening. I have had luck using whole-wheat flour in these as well.

2 1/4 c. flour
1 c. butter
1 c. sugar
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1 TBSP milk
1 tsp vanilla

Cream together the sugar, butter, vanilla, eggs, and milk. Mix together the dry ingredients and add to the butter mixture. Refrigerate overnight.

Divide dough into thirds working with 1/3 at a time. Dough will be sticky--use lots of flour on rolling pin and surface and cut with a cookie cutter. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes on ungreased cookie sheet. Decorate with your favorite frosting.

Alaska Burgers!

Tonight, Mike told me this may make it to one of his favorite dinners EVER, but what do you expect when it's hamburgers and french fries? We had these tasty Alaska Burgers (In honor of Heather and Rob, who've been living in Alaska for the past few weeks) with homestyle fries, grilled squash and cantaloupe. Here's how you can too--

(recipe from Rachel Ray's 30-Minute Meals)

1 pound lean ground beef
1/2 Spanish onion, minced or processed (I just finely chopped it)
4 shakes Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp allspice (1 good pinch)
1/2 tsp ground cumin (2 good pinches)
cracked black pepper
1/3 lb (minimum) brick of smoked cheddar cheese, cut into 1/2" slices.

4 fresh, crusty onion rolls (we stuck with our $0.89 buns)
thick sliced tomato and lettuce to top

Mix first 6 ingredients in bowl. Take 1/4 of mixture and form around a slice of cheese (patty should not be more than 3/4" thick. repeat with remaining mixture for four patties.

Heat nonstick pan or griddle to med. high. Cook burgers 5-6 min. on each side until cooked through and cheese melted. Top with tomato and lettuce.


For the squash, I just cut in half, scored, topped with pepper, garlic salt and some garlic, and broiled in the toaster oven for 20 minutes.

Monteray jack stuffed chicken

I tried a new recipe from More Dinner's in the Freezer tonight (I've made several things out of here so far, and all of them have been fabulous)-- Monteray jack stuffed chicken, which we had with roma tomatoes, avocado slices, sour cream, mango salsa, chips and bing cherries (99 cents a lb until tomorrow at Giant Eagle!)


Monteray Jack Stuffed Chicken

6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 T butter
10 oz (I used less than half that amount) Monteray Jack cheese with jalapenos (not shredded)
4 eggs, beaten (I think 2 would have been plenty)
1/4 cup bottled salsa (not chunky) or taco sauce (mild or med.)
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups panko bread crumbs (I used a little more than half that)
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp dried oregano
sliced avacodo, cherry or roma tomatoes, sour cream and salsa

Cut cheese into 6 equal pieces. Slice horizontal slit or pocket in each chicken breast-- don't cut all the way through! Place one piece of cheese in each pocket. Use 2-3 wooden toothpicks if needed.
Place butter in 9x13 baking dish and put in oven while it preheats to 375. As soon as the butter is melted, remove the pan from the oven.
In shallow pan or pie plate, mix together eggs, salsa and salt. In separate pan, combine breadcrumbs, chili powder cumin, garlic salt and oregano. Dip each chicken breast in the egg mixture to coat, then dip the breast in the panko crumb mixture.
Place chicken in dish with the butter (I drizzed some of the remaining egg mixture over the chicken and then sprinkled the remaining bread crumbs on that). Bake uncovered about 35-40 minutes, or just until done. Serve immediately with a side of sour cream, salsa, avocado slices, and tomatoes.

Michigan Strawberries!

No, we didn't actually pick them ourselves and haven't even tried any recipies with them yet. But we are loving our flat of fresh berries from the farmer's market and are excited that our freezer is beginning to be stocked with summer produce.

Happy Fourth!

I saw a picture in a magazine of a similar Fourth dessert, but it called for "meringue nests," whatever that is, and some sugary goop for the white, but I decided to improvise and make up my own- based on ingredients from the dessert we made for Jack's first birthday.
Very simple.

Make the Jello as instructed on packet and divide desired amount between dessert bowls. After about a half hour of refrigeration, add cut-up strawberries. In a bowl, mix together one regular-sized container of lite Cool-whip, a container of light lemon yogurt and a little bit of sweetened condensed milk until smooth. Divide on tops of Jello. Top with bluebs. Festive and fun to make with kids. Though my strawberries and blueberries kept disappearing.