Monday: Chicken Piccata

Monday.

It didn't start out the best. I went to the grocery on the way home from work. When I walked into the house, Elijah had made himself a grilled cheese sandwich. And he used my small frying pan (instead of the electric skillet, as I've taught him). He turned off the burner on the electric stove, but left the skillet ON the burner with a PLASTIC spatula sitting in it. And you and I both know what happened but apparently the boy who aces every science class he's ever taken - and has made hundreds of grilled cheese sandwiches over the years - had NO IDEA that the plastic spatula would melt into (and ruin) my pan.

Oh yeah, I feel like cooking dinner now.

The menu for this evening was Chicken Piccata with mushrooms, angel hair pasta, green beans, and peach cobbler. (I decided, on top of everything else, to include some fresh fruit desserts in my week-long meal plan.)

CHICKEN PICCATA
(with my edits)

INGREDIENTS

• 6 ounces whole-wheat angel hair pasta
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour, divided
• 2 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 4 chicken cutlets (3/4-1 pound total), trimmed
• 3 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
• 1 1/2 a 10-ounce package mushrooms, sliced
• 3 large cloves garlic, minced (1 1/2 tsp. of the minced jar kind)
  
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley (omitted)
  
• 2 tablespoons capers, rinsed
• 2 teaspoons butter

DIRECTIONS

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until just tender, 4 to 6 minutes or according to package directions. Drain and rinse.

Meanwhile, whisk 5 teaspoons flour and broth in a small bowl until smooth. Place the remaining flour in a shallow dish. Season chicken with 1/4 teaspoon salt and pepper and dredge both sides in the flour. Heat 2 teaspoons oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add the chicken and cook until browned and no longer pink in the middle, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate; keep warm.

Heat the remaining 1 teaspoon oil in the pan over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring, until they release their juices and begin to brown, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate. Add garlic and wine to the pan and cook until reduced by half, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in the reserved broth-flour mixture, lemon juice and the remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring, until the sauce is thickened, about 5 minutes.

Stir in parsley, capers, butter and the reserved mushrooms. Measure out 1/2 cup of the mushroom sauce. Toss the pasta in the pan with the remaining sauce. Serve the pasta topped with the chicken and the reserved sauce.

Fuck-up Factor (chances that I will): Low
Messy Kitchen Factor: High

I made too much pasta. But other than that, there wasn't really a way to mess this up if you followed the recipe. I thought it was really tasty. Chip said the capers were "a nice touch." But he also asked me if there was vinegar in the sauce, and I didn't take that as a compliment. Elijah ate the chicken and very little pasta. Chip ate the chicken and two servings of pasta.

The peach cobbler is considerably easier: Just three ingredients!

PEACH COBBLER

INGREDIENTS

• 1 pouch oatmeal cookie mix
• 1/2 cup cold butter
• 5 cups frozen sliced peaches, thawed and drained.

DIRECTIONS

Heat oven to 375. Place cookie mix in a large bowl. Cut in butter with pastry blender or a fork until mixture looks like coarse crumbs.

Place peaches in ungreased glass baking dish. Sprinkle cookie mixture over peaches.

Bake 25-30 minutes or until topping is golden brown. Serve warm or cool.

I had a small-ish bag of frozen peaches, so I cut the rest of the recipe in half. Besides, I'm not even sure my boys like peaches, so I didn't want a huge batch of this. The recipe said you can use canned peaches, but I loved that the frozen peaches stay so firm and fresh after cooking. I served it with a scoop of vanilla frozen yogurt. It was yummy! I was right about Elijah though - he doesn't like peaches. He just ate the crumble topping.

I cooked the cobbler ahead of time. Once it was cooling on the counter, I started the chicken. The chicken took me about an hour, start to finish, but I imagine a more experienced cook could work much more quickly.

I give today's effort a B+. I would give it an A- if I'd gotten a better response from the family. Although in their defense they were probably in shock.