Parmesan Crusted Chicken and Escarole

"What is this?" you ask...

This is YUM!

Yup, the picture might not make it look like anything all that special because it was taken in my poorly lit dining room at about 9:30pm on my blackberry but believe me it's delicious! It's actually my boyfriends favorite meal (besides my alfredo sauce which I will NEVER share the recipe of). He even likes the escarole. That is amazing because he hates vegetables! ALL vegetables. Except potatoes, but doesn't everyone like potatoes? So let's get on with the recipe.

Sauteed Escarole with Garlic

1 Bunch of Escarole (Cleaned SUPER well and torn a bit)

1/8 (ish) cup of EVOO

6-7 cloves of Chopped Garlic

Salt and Pepper

a splash of Chicken Stock

What to do:

CLEAN YOUR ESCAROLE!! Seriously. No one wants to chomp on dirt. It's not tasty. So when it's clean and torn into smaller pieces, not tiny cuz it shrivels, then put it into a GIANT pot and bring it to a boil, about 5 minutes.

While the escarole is doing its thing put a good amount of olive oil in a big pan and sautee the garlic.

Has it been about 5 minutes yet? I say yes. Drain your escarole and run it under cold water until its not hot anymore then start sauteeing it in the garlic and oil. I let it cook about 15-20 minutes. When there's about 5 minutes left I salt and pepper it and add a splash of chicken stock (or wine, if I have that) and keep mixing it around till it's done.

After all that I put it in the oven or microwave to keep it warm. I don't have enough pans to make all the components at the same time, I'm broke.

Parmesan Crusted Chicken

Boneless/Skinless Chicken Breasts

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Bread Crumbs (I use Schar)

Parmesan BelGioso (Splurge and buy the good stuff, you don't need much)

Salt and Pepper

Garlic Powder

Italian Seasoning

What to do:

Pound the Chicken so it's nice and thin, a half inch or so thick.

Mix the Bread Crumbs with Garlic Powder and Italian Seasoning.

Coat the bottom of a pan with EVOO and let it heat up (I set the heat on about 3 1/2-4 on my stove. So like a low medium).

Massage (do it with love :)) some olive oil into the chicken breasts on one side then season with Salt, Pepper, Garlic Powder and Italian Seasoning.

Sprinkle some Parmesan Cheese over it then sprinkle the Bread Crumbs on top. Add a little more Parmesan Cheese and press it firmly into the chicken.

Place it seasoned side down in the hot oil and repeat the seasoning on the other side.

Flip it carefully to the other side and finish cooking.

After it's done I sprinkle a little more cheese on top :)

It's SOOOOO delicious. And even though some of the ingredients are more pricey you only need a few tablespoons. I promise it's delicious and if you serve it to guests they will have NO IDEA it's gluten free.

I'd suggest practicing the escarole before serving it to guests, it took me a while to get it right.

I'd also like to give a should out to www.affordableglutenfree.blogspot.com for encouraging me to get back into this!

Happy Gluten Free Cooking!!!

XOXO

HOLY CANNOLI!!!

To everyone who thought gluten free cannoli were impossible... HA!!! I made them. My cannoli forms came in the mail a few days ago and I made shells :-D They were so easy to make. I plan to tweak the recipe a little bit when I have more time and my back isn't so sore. There are all sorts of ways to fill the cannoli so I'll leave finding that recipe to you but I'll give you one tip... DRAIN YOUR RICOTTA! For a longgg time. Although I've been told to do that I was impatient and did it for like an hour. haha, it was watery and disgusting. The second time I let mine sit for a day. I would have waited longer still but I'm impatient. And use GOOD ricotta, the whole milk kind. Imported ricotta is supposed to be better, but I don't have the kind of money to get my cheese overnighted from Italy or something. If you do, send me some of your cannoli :) So here it is...

"Holy Cannoli"

2/3 cup of Pamela's Pancake and Baking mix

1 1/2 teaspoons Shortening

1/2 teaspoon Sugar

1/4 teaspoon Vanilla

a pinch of Salt

1/4 cup (approx) Pinot Grigio

Mix all ingredients except Pinot Grigio together. Slowly, while mixing, add a small amount of wine at a time until you get a dough-like consistency. Take the dough and pat in into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour. After it chills for a bit line your work area with plastic wrap, divide your ball into 6 even wedges.

work one piece at a time rolling out between plastic wrap to about a 4" square that is 1/8" thick. This dough is easy to tear and kind of sticky so the best way to roll the square onto the tube is to take the top lay of plastic wrap off and use the bottom one to wrap the dough onto the tube. That way it stays in place without falling apart. Make sure to overlap corners.

It's really easy to do! Then all you do is fry them in some canola oil until golden, about a minute, and you have cannoli shells! I just dropped my first one in the oil and it unravelled so go slowly. Then fill it with whatever cannoli filling you like and dip the ends in mini chocolate chips!

All I wanted was cannoli...

I begged a place back home to make them since they have a great gluten free menu, but the owner said it wouldn't work. Pshh! Whatever. I'll make my own. No disease or allergy will keep me from that delicious little pastry for the rest of my life. I guess it's time to take matters into my own hands. Who would have thought that in the area I live NO WHERE sells cannoli tubes!? Not me! I love cannoli! After going to about a million stores and not finding what I needed I decided to take the advice I saw online... go to a lowes or home depot and have tubing cut for you. OK! Well I got to lowes and the guy said they "pre-grease" their pipes, so that was out but he recommended a few places I could go since I'm new to the area. After calling about 7 stores INCLUDING an Italian market I gave up and ordered off of Amazon. Including shipping it was only like $1 more than the ones I saw on bed bath and beyond's website. Unfortunately for me, this means no cannoli until my package arrives in 3-5 business days. WAHHHH :'(. I still can't believe an Italian market doesn't have the tools to make cannoli! That's like a staple! I wonder what else they don't have... Pasta? Anywho, I still wanted some sort of creamy, cheesy, crispy snack/dessert. And what Shannon wants, Shannon gets :-D So I decided to wing it and I created a Raspberry Mocha Cream Puff Thing. That's what I'll call it, unless you have any better ideas?

"Raspberry Mocha Cream Puff Thing"

So I guess I'll share how I created this fattening summer dessert.

First, a Cream Puff:

• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 7/8 cup Pamela's baking and pancake mix ("flour")
• 4 eggs

Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the water, vanilla, salt and sugar. Bring it to a boil. Once it's boiling take off the heat and pour in the flour and stir until it's a smooth ball. Let that cool for about 10 minutes. Once it's not super hot mix in the eggs, one at a time thoroughly beating the mixture, It should be smooth and pretty runny. Grease a cupcake tray and fill it about 1/2 - 3/4 of the way with the batter and bake for 30-35 minutes at 400*. I like to GENTLY (cuz they're pretty hollow) brush them with egg and sprinkle with sugar for the last few minutes. Take them out, let them cool and cut the bottom off. You WANT this muffin top ;)

Then to Fill:

8oz cream cheese, softened

1/2 stick of butter (1/4 cup), softened

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 - 3/4 cup of fresh raspberries

5 teaspoons mocha powder

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

2 tablespoons mini chocolate chips

In a mixer mash the raspberries and granulated sugar together. Add cream cheese and butter and beat until creamy. Add mocha powder and vanilla and beat until mixed. Add the powdered sugar a little at a time and mix until you get a frosting like consistency, it will be a little thinner, then incorporate the mini chocolate chips.

Assembly:

Scoop the filling into the pastries like they were little bowls, then garnish with fresh fruit. I chose strawberries and raspberries.

You could pretty much use any fruit you want with this recipe. I considered a red, white and blue theme since it's July, but as you can see I didn't consider it for long :-P Hope ya like it!

First Entry

"Let them eat cake"

This is my first time ever blogging! How exciting. It'll be weird for a while to type like someone is listening to what I'm saying. Maybe someday someone will read this. Anyway here's some info on me and what I hope this blog will do. I moved away from home where my saint of a grandma, Nonny, paid for all of my food. I knew how much the sticker on the food at the grocery store said but I never really realized how expensive it was!!! I was going to become a Doctor but I didn't realize that?! Good thing I changed my life path. I want to be the Bree Van De Kamp-Hodge (Desperate Housewives) of Gluten Free cooking! She uses regular flour so naturally I don't want to make my own. I don't have hours to try and make a special flour mix from 19,000,000 separate flours (or the desire to try) so don't look here for that, haha. My recipes, some found, some tweaked, some altered to be GF from family recipes, are all pretty simple. I just figured I'd tell my story to the world and help other people who want yummy Gluten Free food that are on a budget.