Mustard Lemon Chicken

This was the first recipe I ever learned and it's still one of my favorites. In fact this is the first thing I ever cooked for my husband when we were dating. It's super easy. 

Ingredients: 

Boneless skinless chicken breasts 

Dijon mustard 

Lemon pepper seasoning 

2 tbs. butter

2 tbs. olive oil

Directions: 

You can either buy your breasts sliced thin or take a regular breast and pound it thin. Add your butter and olive oil to a small fry pan and heat over medium heat. While waiting for your oil to heat, prepare your chicken. Spread breasts flat out on a plate. Spread mustard over the breasts with the back of a spoon. I use an inexpensive Dijon that comes in a squirt bottle. If you are using Dijon in a jar, be careful of contaminating your mustard with the raw chicken; use two different spoons. You want to make sure that this one side of the chicken is completely covered in Dijon. Then using tongs, flip your breasts over and lie flat again. Shake lemon pepper and cover other side completely in lemon pepper. Starting with lemon pepper side down add to hot oil. Cook for 4 minutes or until starts to get a good golden brown color then flip to other side for 4 minutes and then repeat until chicken is fully cooked. I serve this with broccoli cheese rice and a salad and it is scrumptious! It only takes 20 minutes start to finish. 

Please excuse the picture, I didn't take it until I was already putting the leftovers in Tupperware. 

Clam Chowder

This is actually very fast to prepare. 

Ingredients:

2 cans baby fancy clams

4-6 slices of bacon

4 large russet potatoes

2 ribs of celery

1 medium onion

2 cloves garlic

2-3 sprigs of fresh thyme

4 cups chicken or seafood stock

3 cups half and half

1/4 cup each of corn starch & cold water

Salt & Pepper

Directions: 

Prepare all vegetables. Wash peel and chop potatoes in 1 inch cubes. Wash and dice onion and celery. Mince garlic. 

Add potatoes, 4 cups broth, 2 tsp. salt, thyme sprigs, and all of the juice from both cans of clams to a dutch oven or large stock pot. 

In separate fry pan, fry bacon until crisp. Remove bacon to drain on paper towels. Sauté onion and celery in bacon fat until translucent. Add garlic and cook one minute more then pour all contents of fry pan into the potato pot. 

Bring potato pot to a boil then reduce heat and simmer 10-15 minutes until potatoes are tender. 

In small bowl whip together 1/4 cup of cold water with 1/4 cup cornstarch until lump free. 

Add 3 cups of cream, clams, and cornstarch mixture to the pot. Increase heat to medium and return to boil. Allow to boil several minutes while stirring to thicken broth. Remove thyme sprigs. Taste and then add salt & pepper to taste. Crumble bacon on to each bowl. 

Tortellini Casserole

Ingredients:

1 pkg. Mild Italian sausage

3-4 Summer squash

1 pkg. Cheese tortellini

1 28 oz. can of crushed tomatoes 

1/4 cup chopped onion

2 cloves minced garlic

Fresh Mozzarella cheese

Parmesan cheese 

Salt & pepper to taste

Directions: 

Peel casings off of sausage and cook in dutch oven, breaking apart the meat as you cook it. Add onion. Cook sausage until there is no more pink and onions should be translucent. Rinse and dice squash and add to the pot. Add garlic, salt, pepper, and pour in can of crushed tomatoes. Stir well. In separate pot boil tortellini to package instructions. With slotted spoon, transfer tortellini to other pot. Stir gently to coat the tortellini in sauce. Pour into casserole dish. Slice mozzarella and place evenly over top. Grate Parmesan evenly over top. Bake at 350 for 30 mins. Serve with garlic bread.