For regular readers of this blog, you may remember that over the weekend I made an angel food cake. This meant I was left with over a dozen (yes, over a dozen!!) egg yolks. In baking, egg whites have a little more uses than just the yolks do, so I was a little sad about this. However, then I remembered I could make lemon curd. What’s even better is I found a recipe that made one the best lemon curds I’ve ever had and it even gets folded into a lovely pound cake.
As summer comes to a close, I though it would be a good idea to take one last advantage of all the delicious berries available. Strawberry season is long gone and the drop in flavor is almost immediate. So I stayed clear of strawberries this time. For this recipe the star was blueberries.
Earlier in the week, I had a bit of free time, so I decided to spend it by baking. This time, I decided on another scone recipe from the MB cookbook. It’s a chapter that is getting almost completely ignored.
True to my word, I made some time for me to bake a cake. This happened partially because I had a reason to bake. My boyfriend recently purchased a condo and to celebrate, he asked if I could make him a cake. Specifically, he wanted a lemon cake. The fact that I was able to make a lemon cake for the blog was a happy accident!
I’ll be honest, muffins are not my favorite pastry. I’m definitely more of a cookie guy. But these Lemon Zest muffins are starting to make me rethink that statement.
That was me one day last week. I had been feeling a little out of sorts and figured baking a yummy treat would help cheer me up. I also wanted to bake something other than cookies. Eventually, I settled on yet another recipe out of the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook and I wasn’t disappointed.
This recipe can be found in Barefoot Contessa At Home
Last week, dinner was a simple chicken dish. And I have to say, I think I like Ina’s recipe for Chicken Piccata better than any I’ve had at a restaurant before! The simplicity of this recipe makes it a stellar recipe for weeknights. But it’s also elegant enough to serve for a special occasion.
Chicken Piccata, in Ina’s version, is simply breaded chicken cutlets in a lemon sauce. I did make a few changes so the recipe would be healthier (and less messy) but I think the general idea still comes through.
This recipe can be found in Barefoot Contessa How Easy Is That? on page 120.
Last Friday, I took over the dinner duty, as usual. This week I made a lovely chicken dish and a side of vegetables to go along with it.
The main course was Lemon Chicken Breasts. While the recipe calls for boneless chicken breasts with the skin on, I wasn’t able to find that. So I just used the more-common boneless, skinless chicken breasts. The breasts did not develop a beautiful golden-brown color on top like the recipe photograph shows, but they were still tasty nonetheless.
The recipe is heavy on the lemon. Lemon juice and zest is used in the sauce that the breasts bake in, but I don’t feel the use of lemon was overpowering. It adds a wonderful, fresh, citrusy flavor the dish. This was perfect for a cold winter’s night since I often find myself longing for the warmer days of summer.
This dish is easy enough to make for a weeknight since it can be completed in around 40 minutes from start to finish. Although, I do feel that letting the chicken rest after taking it out of the oven is essential to prevent the meat from being too dry. But that aside, this is a fast and easy weeknight dinner, which is unusual for Ina. Long time readers of this blog will recall that I have found some of her recipes time-consuming.
The vegetable dish I served with this will be reviewed tomorrow.
Stay tuned!
You can see from the photo above that the vegetable dish was a broccoli one. I wasn’t able to take a separate photograph.
