Russian Tea Cakes

I searched cookie cook books for quite some time trying to find a recipe for these cookies. I finally went to the internet and found a yummy recipe! These cookies are one of mine and Michael's favorites!

1 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 Tbsp confectioners' sugar
2 cups flour
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/3 cup confections' sugar (for decorating)

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• In a medium bowl, cream butter and vanilla until smooth. Combine the confectioner's sugar and flour. Stir in to the butter mixture until just blended.
• Mix in the chopped walnuts. Rough dough in to 1 inch balls and place them 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
• Bake for 12 minutes. When cool, roll in remaining confectioners' sugar.

Spritz Cookies

Sorry for the mass amount of recipes being posted this morning! I have had a few piling up and then realized I had a couple more from a year ago that never went up... I hope you enjoy them :)

This recipe came with my awesome cookie press that I bought from pampered chef! I made them to send to some friends in Australia (along with the Russian Tea Cakes, also posted this morning).

1-1/2 cups butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
3-1/2 cups all purpose flour
Colored sugar or sprinkles

• Preheat oven to 375.
• In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar on medium speed for about three minutes. Should be creamy. Add egg and vanilla, beat well. Add flour, mix on low speed just until blended.
• Fit cookie press with desired disk and fill with dough. Press dough on to cookie sheet, about 1 inch apart. Decorate with colored sugar or sprinkles.
• Bake 10-12 minutes or until edges are light golden brown. Cool two minutes on cookie sheet then remove to cooling rack.

Pumpkin Cookies

Pumpkin cookies have always been a favorite of mine growing up. I'm not sure where this recipe came from though. It's written on that paper they use in elementary school to teach children to write, the ones with two solid lines and a dotted line in the middle. It's so old it's actually an orange/yellow color. It's pretty tattered... so tattered that one time I misread it and accidentally put 4 times the amount of salt in them! After that, I decided I should type it out so I don't make those kinds of mistakes again!

1 cup brown sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups sifted flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ginger
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped nuts

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• In a large bowl, beat together the sugar, pumpkin, oil, and vanilla.
• In a medium bowl, sift together dry ingredients. Add to pumpkin mixture and stir until smooth. Blend in raisins and nuts.
• Drop by spoonfuls on to cookie sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes.

Sesame-Teriyaki Salmon

This was one of the first fish recipes I made for my husband. I got it out of my Better Homes and Gardens cook book and originally called for sea bass. Instead, I made a couple servings of a white fish (for him) as well as a couple servings of salmon (for me). Michael is not a big fan of fish, so I was pretty proud when he decided he liked it!

4 4-oz fresh or frozen fish fillets (1/2-3/4 inch thick)
1/4 tsp black pepper
3 Tbsp soy sauce
1/4 cup sweet rice win (mirin)
2 tsp honey
2 tsp cooking oil
2 tsp sesame seeds and/or black sesame seeds, toasted

• If frozen, thaw fish. Rinse and pat dry with paper towels. Sprinkle with pepper and set aside.
• For glaze, in small saucepan, combine soy sauce, rice wine, and honey. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer uncovered for about ten minutes. Should be slightly thickened and reduced to about 1/3 cup.
• Meanwhile, in a large skillet, cook fish in hot oil over medium heat until fish is golden and begins to flake. About 4-6 minutes per 1/2 of thickness. Drain on paper towels and transfer to platter.
• Drizzle fish with glaze, sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve!

Because meat never seems to cook as fast for me as it says it should in the recipe, I have started covering my skillets while the meat is cooking in hot oil. It helps keep the heat AND the oil in the pan!

Zucchini Bread

My cousin brought some zucchinis over for our house warming party... I looked at them later and mentioned that I don't like cucumbers! LOL, shows exactly how much I eat my vegetables ;) Because we don't make any meals with those types of vegetables, I decided to try out some bread. My husband had said before how much he liked it, so I gave it a whirl.

3 cups all purpose flour
1tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
3 tsp ground cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2-1/4 cups white sugar
3 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup chopped walnuts

• Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
• In a medium bowl, sift flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon together.
• In a large bowl, beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together.
• Add sifted ingredients to creamed mixture and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined.
• Pour batter in to prepared pans and bake for 40-60 minutes or until tester insreted in to the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes, remove from pan and completely cool.

Banana Bread

This isn't the exact recipe my mother used growing up, but it tastes just as good! I got this out of my Better Homes and Garden cook book. I often find that we don't eat our bananas as fast as they ripen up (I prefer my bananas green!) so we always have plenty left over for bread :)

2 cups all purpose flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
2 eggs, beaten
1-1/2 cups ripe mashed bananas (about 5 medium)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cooking oil or melted butter/margarine
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom and 1/2 up sides of one bread pan.
• In large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Make a well in the center of the mixture.
• In a medium bowl, combine eggs, banana, sugar, and oil. Add egg mixture all at once to flour mixture. Stir just until moistened (should be lumpy). Fold in walnuts, spoon batter in to prepared pans.
• Bake for 40-45 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes, remove from pan, cool completely on rack.

Honey-Mustard Chicken and Apples

This was another wonderful Food Network Magazine find! Sorry if there's been too much chicken lately, it's one of our favorite meats and it just seems there are plenty of good recipes for it out there :)

8 skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs (2-2.5 lbs)
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 large onion, cut in to large chunks
2 cooking apples (such as Cortland), cut in to chunks
1 cup chicken broth
2-3 Tbsp honey mustard
1-1/2 tsp unsalted butter, softened
1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1-2 Tbsp roughly chopped fresh parsley

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Season chicken with salt and pepper.
• Heat the oil in large ovenproof skillet over med-high heat. Working in batches if necessary, add the chicken, skin-side down, and cook until golden (about 6 minutes). Flip and cook 2-3 more minutes then transfer to a plate. Pour off all but 2 Tbsp of drippings.
• Add the onions and apples then season with salt and pepper. Cook until slightly softened (about 4 minutes). Mix the broth with the mustard then add to the skillet and bring to a boil.
• Arrange the chicken skin-side up in the skillet, transfer to the oven and roast until cooked through (15-20 minutes).
• Mix butter and flour to form a paste. Use slotted spoon to move chicken, apples, and onions to a platter. Bring the pan juices to a simmer, add the butter-flour mixture, and boil to thicken. Pour over chicken and sprinkle with parsley.

Chicken Picatta

Last night we had a dinner party for a friend from out of town and this was the dish I made. It's definitely a new favorite and we'll be eating it quite often! I'm actually eating leftovers of it as I type, hehe.

I got it out of my "teaser" Cuisine at Home. They sent me a free preview to try to get me to order it... it worked! I decided to not renew my Bon Apetit magazine (not that there wasn't good food in it!). There just weren't enough pictures, so I often found myself picking dishes out of my other magazines. This new magazine has a picture of EVERY dish, yep! Those are my favorite kind of magazines :)

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (or 4 thighs if you like!!)
Salt
Black pepper
Flour
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 dry white wine
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp capers, drained
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
Fresh lemon slices
Chopped fresh parsley

• Cut the chicken in half and pound in to cutlets. Season with salt and pepper, then dredge in flour.
• Coat a saute pan with nonstick spray, add oil, heat over medium-high. Saute cutlets 2-3 minutes on one side, flip over and saute other side, covered, 1-2 minutes. Transfer to warmed platter.
• Pour off fat from pan, deglaze with wine and add minced garlic. Cook until garlic is slightly brown and liquid is almost gone (about 2 minutes). Add broth, lemon juice, and capers. Return cutlets to pan and cook on each side for about 1 minute. Transfer back to warm platter.
• Finish sauce with butter and lemon slices. After butter melts, pour sauce over cutlets and garnish with parsley.

Quick Coq Au Vin

This is a recipe I got from my Bon Appetit magazine. I wasn't sure what it was (they don't have pictures with most of their recipes), but the ingredients sounded tasty, so I gave it a try! It was my first time making a sauce with red wine and I was pleasantly surprised with how well it turned out (I don't like wine at all!). The finished sauce did NOT look very good... but don't let that keep you from trying it :)

I used both breast and thigh so everyone got the kind they liked. While I was cooking this, the chicken breast didn't seem to be cooking all the way through and I was running out of time before we needed to be at bowling! To help with the problem, I left them undercooked from the skillet, set the oven to 350 degrees (instead of the 300 in the recipe below) and let them finish cooking in the oven.

4 bacon slices, coarsely chopped
4 skinless boneless chicken breast halves
3 Tbsp chopped fresh Italian parsley (divided)
8 oz large cremini mushrooms (aka baby bella), halved
8 large shallots, peeled and halved through root end
2 garlic cloves, pressed
1-1/2 cups dry wed wine (such as Syrah)
1-1/2 cups chicken broth (divided)
4 tsp all purpose flour

• Preheat the oven to 300. Saute bacon in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until crisp. Using slotted spoon, transfer to bowl.
• Sprinkle chicken with salt, pepper, and 1 Tbsp parsley. Add to drippings in skillet. Saute until cooked through (about 6 minutes per side), transfer to pie dish, place in oven to keep warm.
• Add mushrooms and shallots to skillet, sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. Saute until brown (about 4 minutes). Add garlic, toss for 10 seconds. Add wine, 1-1/4 cups broth, bacon, and 1 Tbsp parsley. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, boil 10 minutes.
• Meanwhile, place flour and 1/4 cup broth in small cup. Stir until smooth. Add flour mixture to sauce and cook until sauce thickens (3-4 minutes). Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper.
• Arrange chicken on a platter, stir juice from pie dish into sauce, and spoon over chicken. Sprinkle with 1 Tbsp parsley.