Fall Dinner: Orange-Lavender Chicken with Parmesan Potatoes

Here is something from a few months ago...

You know those beautiful fall evenings when the air is a little crisp, you light a cinnamon candle, cook dinner and watch a movie with a loved one.....I just had one.

I will admit it, I am terrible about having really high expectations and I let life pass me by sometimes. For example, if Jeff and I plan to go on a date I have a unrealistic image of how the night should go...he arrives just on time with a rose, whisks me away to a wonderful dinner and we catch a inexpensive funny movie later, there is no traffic and the weather is just perfect...OK maybe I am not THAT bad but close. So this week I decided to consciously make an effort to no have expectations...to let the pieces fall where they may. I relaxed! Amazing huh? So due to this relaxation and letting go of the desire to plan EVERYTHING....I had a great night. Jeff cooked his meal (even though I was sceptical of the ingredients) we ate later than I usually do (I ate chips so dinner wasn't such a rush) and everything just fell into place. So here is what resulted in me "letting go"...

We took the short walked in the cool crisp Autumn air to the grocery store. We had a rough plan, but let the images at the store help add to the recipes. Our total was under 20 dollars and we walked home. Jeff cooked up lavender-orange-tarragon chicken with carrots and I made Parmesan potatoes (recipes at bottom). Leave it to me to use potatoes and cheese...I am not surprised.
So this is where the story gets really good....we cooked in about 30 minutes and finished at the same time with our individual dishes....and then (Gasp!) we only had 2 pots to clean.  It felt like the Twilight Zone. Jeff and I usually can't keep it together in the kitchen....my potatoes are burning...his chicken is taking forever to cook and we are left with 10 dishes to clean (mine even have things burnt on them).

So we sat down to a WONDERFUL dinner. We were pretty surprised about how tasty the food was and couldn't believe that it came together so well. These dishes are seriously good! The colors of the food reinforced the fall theme. Have I told you that I love fall yet? Then we watched a fantastic movie, Milk.

Jeff's cooking base of  fresh orange juice, shallots, garlic, tarragon and fresh lavender

Now with the chicken breasts

The fresh lavender

Sparkling water to drink (to keep the Candidas at bay, I opted out of wine)

My Potatoes....MMMM Cheese!

Jeff's Lavender, Tarragon, Orange Chicken
-2 cloves chopped garlic
-2 cups chopped carrots
-1 cup chopped shallots
-2 tablespoons tarragon
-2 tablespoons lavender
-Juice of 1 orange
-2 chicken breasts
-Salt and pepper to taste

Sautee garlic, carrots, and shallots in a bit of olive oil and add half the tarragon, lavender, and orange juice. Clear room in the middle of the sautee pan for the chicken breasts and add the remainder of the tarragon, lavender, and orange juice while the chicken breasts cook.

Toasted Parmesan Potatoes
-5 little red potatoes
-shredded Parmesan (none of that powder stuff!)
-2 cloves fresh chopped garlic
-olive oil
-salt and pepper

Slice the potatoes and coat in olive oil and put in a microwave safe container. Cook the potatoes for 4 minutes, then stir and cook for 4 more minutes. Top with 2 cloves garlic, salt and pepper to taste and a hefty layer of cheese. Bake in a glass container in the oven at 375 degrees for 15 minutes. Then broil the potatoes on high for 5 minutes to slightly brown the cheese. Don't leave the potatoes unattended...the broiler will burn them pretty quick.

Chicken Nuggets, Baked Potato, Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, Mary’s Easy Bars, Homemade Croutons

Chicken Nuggets, Baked Potato, Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, Mary’s Easy Bars, Homemade Croutons

I decided to host a Sunday lunch party at my apartment to get some recipes out of the way and to have my grandparents over to visit for the first time. I did all of the shopping and cooking on Saturday to leave my stress level low for Sunday. I caffeinated myself up and got to shopping. Once I finished and got home, I decided to carry all of the bags in one trip. This included 8 potatoes, a 2 liter of sparkling soda, Pepsi and a gallon of orange juice. It was heavy! It took quite a bit of strength to lift the bags up onto the counter. The caffeine made me invincible and I pulled it off. The chicken nugget recipe, vanishing oatmeal raisin cookies and Mary’s easy bars are from Mom, and the baked potato and homemade croutons are from me.
I feel totally lied to….Mary’s easy bars are in fact, not easy. Sure the recipe looks simple enough, mix some ingredients and layer them with a chocolate mixture. Sure it only has a few ingredients. The problem comes when the recipe says mix…batter will be thick. I try to stir the batter, which is useless, apparently thick means cement clay. I think hmmm I can probably do this with my hands, kneed the ingredients together. This was a failure! The batter was not only cement clay, but also super glue. I was covered with a paste and every time I tried to scrap it off one hand, it just stuck to the other. I did the best I could, but eventually had to wash my hands and lose some batter. Then I put the mixture in a greased pan…It was too dang thick though to spread out in the pan like a normal cake! It just slipped along the greased bottom. I decided to do something drastic, creative….perhaps a litter weird; I sprayed cooking spray all over my hands and spread it around like a lotion. Stick to this batter! The oil helped the batter to keep to itself and I was able after a lot of finesse to get the batter ready. I added some chocolate and put batter chunks on top (not an easy task either).
I cut up the chicken pieces without making any contact with the chicken and prepared the coating for the next day. The Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies went off without a hitch and I ate a warm one as my dinner. I decided to use up some old French bread and make croutons. I cut the bread into small cubes and tossed them in olive oil with garlic salt, pepper, and parsley and then put them in the oven. I started the dishes and wiped the counters down and played with Max..and why is the oven still on? Oh yea! I am making croutons! They ended up burned (I know you aren’t really surprised) but still decent to eat.
I put out some other leftovers I had, salsa, cranberry salsa, and scramble. The guest list included; Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, Dad, Ali, Shannon and Shannon’s boyfriend Conner (or if you are Ali you can call him Simon cause you can’t remember his name). We ate and visited; Max was excited to have people over to play with. Thank you for coming family!

No Bake Cheesecake, Red Wine-Rosemary Steak, and Cream Cheese Stuffed new Potatoes

On Saturday I cooked up a little dessert recipe to bring over to ‘Oscars girls night’ at Amanda's apartment. I made the No bake Cheesecake, brought to you by Mom. This recipe is EASY and tastes just like labor-intensive cheesecake. I went to the grocery store after a stiff cocktail at Mary’s 50th birthday party. I only needed a few ingredients and rushed to get them all, completely forgetting about the cheese samples. I realized this when I was already halfway home, and considered going back. I think that makes me an official fat kid if I drive back to the store for cheese cubes…so, I declined. I get home and take a nice long nap until 10pm (I know, don’t you wish your Saturday was this exciting?). I awake with energy and do the impossible: mix the ingredients (cool whip, sour cream, cream cheese, sugar and vanilla) and plop them into a readymade pie crust. As I wipe the sweat from my brow after this laborious venture, I put the cheesecake in the fridge and call it a night.
Fast forward to Sunday. Jennifer and I drive down to Broomfield to Amanda’s for our girl’s night. Amanda made some delicious food that is going to make the cut for the recipe book. First course: Limón cello blueberry martinis with a sprig of mint (added points for making a martini the first course). Second course: baguettes drizzled with olive oil and topped with a tomato, melted mozzarella chunks and basil, then drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette. Third Course: mixed greens salad with pecans, cranberries, blue cheese, and a raspberry vinaigrette. Fourth Course: fermented grapes left over from Jeff and my Valentine’s dinner. Fifth course: the No Bake Cheesecake topped with leftover Mybest fudge from last week, caramel and pecans….TURTLE! Oh yea and a side of cherry pie filling for good measure. We didn’t actually watch the Oscars, but chatted as girls do and spent a long time discussing workout routines (as we stuffed our faces full of yummyness).
Fast forward (well actually not that fast, days go by slow in the corporate world) to Tuesday night. Jeff has decided to make me dinner. He is a really good cook and the food he made was no exception. He looked up some recipes on foodnetwork.com and came up with an entrée and a side. He made a red wine and rosemary hanger steak (there was a little bit more to the recipe than that…bay leaves, onions and other vegetables/spices). Then the cru de gra….a recipe by the Southern Belle, Food Network star, butter loving temptress…Paula Deen; Cream cheese stuffed new Potatoes. So he cooked some little red potatoes and scooped a bowl out of the top of them. Then he mixed garlic and herb cheese, heavy whipping cream and butter and scooped it into the potatoes. Check the scale, cause I think you just gained 5 pounds reading this. As I enjoyed my steak and licked the melting butter off the side of the potatoes Max looked on in jealously that he too, could not be a human.

Here is the extensive chopping results. Max happy after the bacon. The potato chowder and the key lime pie.

Potato Chowder and Low-Fat Key Lime Pie.

I turn the movie National Treasure on, turn the TV towards the kitchen again and start. I probably should be alone in the kitchen with no distractions, just me and the food, one on one. Taking in the smells and sights and making a connection with the food. But the food intimidates me, so I bring the third party movie along. I am getting better at this; I only had to make 3 calls to Gretchen, Jeff’s mom, for clarification of the recipe. Once again one can of cream of chicken soup is relative. The other problem was I have never cooked real bacon in my whole life….I have just done the microwave stuff. So I had a few questions about how to cook the bacon. Also, the recipe called for ½ can of milk, I had no idea that they sold cans of milk…it turns out they don’t. The one can was referring to pouring the milk in the cream of chicken soup can (how resourceful and less dishes!). The grocery store was okay today, my first stop was Starbucks and that made the trip a whole lot easier. So I am home, cooking with Max, watching Nick Cage do the impossible, as always. The potato chowder is time intensive. I started frying one pound of bacon, which took 4 shifts in my largest frying pan. As the bacon cooked I chopped….and chopped….and chopped; three large onions and 5 russet potatoes (peeled first). Max went after the bacon, so I tried to appease him with onion pieces. He figured our real soon that bacon was much better than onion and the spray bottle came out.
As soon as the chopping had commenced and I turned to fermented grapes to ease the wrist pain, I started to sauté the onions. I read the recipe as; cooking the onions in two cups of water, instead of sauté the onions and then add two cups of water. Minor detail, minor snag. I drain out the water, and start to actually sauté the onions. I thought this would be a nice break to start the Weight Watchers Key Lime Pie, from Grandma. This recipe is easy and quick [man, Nick Cage is a bad liar, I bet he does know where the treasure is]. So I start working on the Key Lime and, in the process, totally forget about the onions. I return eventually to find a CRISIS! The bottom layer of onion is charred and burnt to the pan. DANG IT! I jump into action and whip out another sauté pan, trying to put the top onions into it. As expected, some little burnt pieces make it into my new pan, so while still hot (I am not sure what my urgency was) I try to pick out burnt pieces. Ouch! More wine please! I then put the potatoes in a strainer and rinse them until most of the burnt pieces fall away and decide that this is going to have to be good enough.
So the Key Lime pie is finished within minutes and put in the fridge to cool. I keep an eye on the onions this time and complete the recipe. The one pound of bacon turns into ¾ pound of bacon. It’s not the best idea to cook hungry. Also, Max takes advantage of the onion crisis and is found munching away on the bacon…I can’t be that mad….smart kitty. [Come on, Nick Cage is too goofy looking to get that girl!] The chowder must simmer for one hour covered and one hour uncovered, so I have two hours to relax.
Max and I are fat and happy off of the bacon. I am finishing the movie and Max is doing the dishes in the sink with his tongue. I will let you know how the Chowder and Key Lime Pie taste. Max would let you know too if he could, I will take his silence as a yum.