What’s Cookin’ in the Parsonage?

January finds us celebrating three birthdays. My mother-in-law’s was last week and we celebrated by making her a special dinner at our home. I had a new cookbook with some great recipes by Ina Garten (a favorite of mine!) and I was anxious to try out a few new recipes! We set the table with the china and crystal…

Then with the help of my Family Consumer Science major (and lovely daughter), we set to work preparing the meal. Allison tried a new recipe for Vanilla Bean Cheesecake that she found in my Cooking Light Cookbook. Oh, my! This was so yummy!

A couple changes she made were to double the crust. One recipe of the crust just wasn’t enough to bring up the sides of the spring form pan. She used blueberries in the topping and left out the port. We found vanilla beans at the health food store. The difference that some special ingredient like that makes is incredible. You could see the specks of vanilla in the cake. Mmmmmmmmm!

Lettuce Wedge with Ranch was a nice change from a tossed salad.

Couscous with pine nuts – so delicious and another welcomed change from rice or potatoes.
I made half the recipe and it was more than enough for 4.

This cooks up in 10 minutes. I sauteed onions first then added the couscous.

Roasted Butternut Squash
My recipe also called for 1 tbl of thyme. This added a nice flavor in the squash.

Here’s the birthday honoree’ with her birthday cheesecake.

Lemon Chicken Breasts

1/4 cup olive oil

3 Tbl minced garlic

1/3 cup chicken broth

1 tbl grated lemon zest (2 lemons)

1 1/2 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp minced fresh thyme leaves

salt, pepper

4 boneless chicken breasts, skin on

1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Warm the olive oil in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, add the garlic, and cook for just 1 minute but don’t allow the garlic to turn brown. Off the heat, add the chicken broth, lemon zest, lemon juice, oregano, thyme, and 1 tsp salt and pour into a 9 x 12 inch baking dish.

Pat the chicken breasts dry and place them skin side up over the sauce. Brush the chicken breasts with olive oil and sprinkle them liberally with salt and pepper. Cut the lemon in 8 wedges and tuck it among the pieces of chicken.

Bake for 30 – 40 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken breasts, until the chicken is done and the skin is lightly browned. If the chicken isn’t browned enough, put it under the broiler for 2 minutes. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Sprinkle with salt and serve hot with the pan juices.

We had fun trying these new recipes. The best part was tasting them! If you try them, I think you’ll think so too! By the way, though this wasn’t a Sunday dinner as I usually post here, everything but the Butternut Squash would be very doable ahead of time for Sunday. I’d bake the chicken very low while at church. If the onions were sauteed beforehand for the couscous it would be done very quickly once you returned home. This would be a great menu for a Sunday to make dinner at home a special one!

Happy Cooking!