Tag Archives: lemon

Spinach and Mozzarella Chicken with Lemon Roasted Potatoes

15 Jan

Spinach and Mozzarella Chicken with Lemon Roasted Potatoes

 

This turned out amazing!  I had gotten spinach from Bountiful Baskets in the juicing pack I contributed for, and wanted to make it with chicken somehow.  So, I started looking through some recipes, and came up with a marinade for the chicken, then topped with spinach and mozzarella cheese.  I wanted them to be somewhat flatter, but didn’t pound them flat very well.  Just meant that it took a little longer for them to cook.  Since I had gotten red potatoes and lemons as well in my regular basket, I thought roasting the potatoes with lemon would be a nice addition.

 

Spinach & Mozzarella Chicken

What you need:

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/3 cup olive oil
Juice of 2 lemons (or about 1/3 cup)
1 tablespoon rosemary
2 cloves minced garlic
Salt and pepper
2 cups fresh spinach
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

How to make it:

In a small bowl, combine olive oil, lemon juice, rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper.  Put chicken on a flat surface in between 2 pieces of wax paper and pound flat.  Place chicken in a gallon size zipper bag and pour contents of the bowl over chicken in the bag.  Seal bag and place in refrigerator overnight, or for at least 1 hour before cooking.

Remove chicken from bag and discard remaining marinade.  Preheat oven to 400 F.  Heat a large skillet over medium heat.  Cook chicken in skillet for about 5 minutes each side to slightly brown it.  Remove from skillet and place in a baking dish.

In the same skillet, put in the spinach and cook for a few minutes until spinach wilts.  Place spinach on each of the chicken breasts in baking dish.  Next, put shredded mozzarella on top of the spinach on each chicken breast.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until chicken is cooked fully through and cheese is melted.

 

 

Lemon Roasted Potatoes

What you need:

3 pounds red potatoes, well scrubbed
Juice of 1 lemon
Olive oil
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Dice the potatoes, leaving skins on.  Place in a large bowl.

In a small bowl, mix together remaining ingredients.  Pour over the potatoes in the large bowl.  Toss to fully coat potatoes.

Spray a foil lined baking sheet with non-stick spray.   Spread potatoes in an even layer on the baking sheet.

Cook in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.  Stir potatoes around on baking sheet.  Continue to bake for 15-20 minutes, or until potatoes are browned and softened.

Tags: , , , , ,

Strawberry Lemonade Chiller

11 Jul

I wasn’t sure what to call this, because I didn’t add any ice cream or milk like a smoothie, I called it a chiller, like the ones at McDonald’s, but with fresh ingredients.  To make it, I used the 2 packages of the frozen strawberries and 1 package of the frozen lemon juice cubes I had made recently.  It turned out great and super sweet, so you could add more crushed ice to it to help make it less sweet.  Or, reduce or omit the sugar, the strawberries I had were probably sweet enough to do without any sugar.  We had some friends over today, and all the kids loved it!

Strawberry Lemonade Chiller

What you need:

2 cups water
1/2 cup sugar (use less or omit depending on how sweet you want it)
1 lb frozen strawberries, about 4 cups
1 cup frozen lemon juice cubes
Ice cubes, optional

How to make it:

Bring the water and sugar to a boil on the stove long enough to dissolve the sugar.  Allow to fully cool.

Put the strawberries and sugar/water mixture in a blender and puree until smooth.  Add in lemon juice cubes, and again, puree until smooth.

If mixture is too sweet for you, pour the mixture into a pitcher, then use blender to chop up 1-2 cups of ice cubes, and add to the pitcher, mix in well.

Tags: , ,

Watermelon Lemonade

27 Jun

I had watermelon that was sitting around not getting eaten, which is actually odd for my house.   So, I needed to come up with a way to use it.  I searched allrecipes.com and came across a recipe for Watermelon Lemonade.  It’s still rather easy, like the Lemonade recipe I had posted previously, just adds in a couple of steps for the watermelon.  It ends up being a nice, cool treat on a hot day like today is!

 

Watermelon Lemonade
Based on recipe here

What you need:

4 cups cubed watermelon
1 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 4 – 6 lemons)
1/4 – 1/2 cup sugar
Water

How to make it:

Put the watermelon in a blender.  Cover, and blend until smooth.  Strain through a fine mesh strainer.  You will end up with 1-1/2 to 2 cups of liquid after straining.  Pour the strained liquid into a 2 quart pitcher.  Add lemon juice into a 2 quart pitcher.

Heat 2 cups of water and the sugar, and stir until sugar dissolves.  Let cool.

Pour sugar and water mixture into the pitcher.  Add enough water to fill the 2 qt pitcher.  Stir well.

Chill in refrigerator for a couple of hours or serve over ice.

Tags: ,

Lemons, lemons, lemons!

8 May

This past week’s Bountiful Baskets had a case of approximately 38 lbs lemons available as an extra.  A friend of mine decided to get them and wanted to share, so I went in on the box.  There were 3 of us, and the box had 75 lemons, so we got 25 lemons each.  So, what does one do with 25 lemons?  I cut and peeled them, then ran them through my juicer.  I probably could have left the peels on, but I didn’t want the lemon juice to be too strong and tart.

I was very happy to end up with about 7 cups of lemon juice.  1 cup was made into lemonade, 4 cups are currently freezing in ice cube trays in my freezer (each cube is 1 oz), and 2 cups is in a container in the refrigerator until I decide what to do with it.  I may make some Strawberry Lemonade next, since I have plenty of strawberries.

The lemonade was really easy, here is how I made it:

Lemonade

What you need:

1 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 4 – 6 lemons)
1/2 cup sugar
4 cups water

How to make it:

Pour lemon juice into a 2 quart pitcher.

Heat 2 cups of water and the sugar, and stir until sugar dissolves.  Let cool.

Pour sugar and water mixture into the pitcher.  Add another 2 cups of water to the pitcher.

Depending on your taste, you may want to add more or less sugar or water.

Tags: ,

Roast Leg of Lamb

8 Apr

 

This is one of my husband’s favorites.   Unfortunately, the price of lamb makes it so we can’t enjoy it very often, but we do splurge to get it every so often.  This leg of lamb we got at the local Farmer’s Market from San Ysidro Farms.  It turned out really good, so good that even my 3-year-old asked for seconds.  This was our Easter meal, and I served bread and celery dressing and roasted asparagus with this.

 

Roast Leg of Lamb

What you need:

5-6 lb leg of lamb
1-2 garlic cloves, peeled and cut lengthwise
Oregano
Rosemary
Juice of 1 lemon
Red wine (I usually use merlot)

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Make quarter-inch deep incisions in all sides of lamb and insert a sliver of garlic in each slit.  See picture below.

Baste with lemon juice and red wine and season with oregano and rosemary.  Place on a rack inside a roasting pan.  Cook fat side up for 1 hour, basting every 15 minutes.  You may need to add water to the bottom of the roasting pan to help with basting.  Turn leg over to brown other side as well, 1-2 hours, or until desired temperature is reached. 130 F – 140 F for rare, 140 F – 150 F for medium, and 150 F – 160 F for well done.

Tags: , , , ,

Avgolemono Soup

18 Feb

 

It has been a LONG time since I have had this soup.  I hadn’t actually made this soup until now.  When I was making the chicken broth, my uncle commented on Facebook that when my grandmother was cooking chicken broth on the stove in the morning, he knew they were having Avgolemono Soup for dinner that night!  That was my motivation to finally make it.  The ingredient list is short, but it does require a little time and attention while making it.  The results are worth it, I promise!  If you want, you can add come cooked, shredded chicken to this to make it more of a meal.  I made it without.

 

Avgolemono Soup
Recipe from my Uncle Chris

What you need:

1 quart broth
1/4 cup long grain rice or orzo
1 egg
Juice of 1 lemon

How to make it:

Bring broth to boil. Add rice or orzo. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, squeeze lemon and mix with egg in a bowl.

When rice is done cooking, remove from stove. Using a ladle, add a small amount of hot broth very slowly to the egg-lemon mix while constantly stirring the egg-lemon mix with a wisk or mixer. Continue doing this with about half the broth and then reverse the process; use your ladle to slowly add this mix back into the remaining broth. When this process is complete your soup should look frothy.

Return it to the stove to heat back up to serving temp–But don’t let it boil! What you are making is called a suspension. The soup looks creamy, but it is actually comprised of tiny globs of egg suspended in the broth. The cooling process used to create the suspension is called tempering. If you just dumped the egg into the hot broth it would cook too fast to suspend (you end up with egg-drop soup). You don’t ever want to boil the soup because that will cook the egg too much and cause it to separate from the broth. This happens also when you reheat the soup. It never looks as good as it does on the first serving.

Tags: , ,

Greek Salsa

16 Feb

 

This is a recipe I got from my Papou, and he had gotten it from a magazine, but I can’t remember which one anymore.  The recipe was actually Greek Salsa Chicken, this salsa served over lemon chicken and roasted potatoes.  Normally, I serve it with Lemon Herb Chicken and roasted potatoes that I’ve cooked separately.  But, I thought it would be the perfect addition to the Kotopoulo Lemonato we had for dinner tonight!  I was right!

 

Greek Salsa

What you need:

1 1/2 cups crumbled feta cheese
1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes, halved (I diced one regular tomato tonight since that’s what I had)
1 jar (4.75 oz) pitted kalamata olives
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp chopped fresh oregano (or 1 Tbsp dried oregano)

How to make it:

Combine all ingredients in a bowl.  Cover and chill until ready to serve.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Kotopoulo Lemonato (Lemon Chicken) and Broccoli Rabe

19 Jan

First, another great recipe from Cyndy at Daily Cynema, Kotopoulo Lemonato.  I love lemon chicken, and this is an AMAZING dish.  And yes, in the picture, that is a whole onion and lemon rinds in the cavity of the chicken.  Trust me, it works. The chicken was moist and flavorful.  My potatoes did get a little crunchy, I probably should have stirred them more, but I like crunchy roasted potatoes.  If they are mushy, then what was the point of roasting them, right?  For this dish, I used the red onion, a yellow onion, 3 lemons, fresh rosemary, and fresh oregano from the Italian themed veggie pack.

For full instructions on how to make this, please visit Daily Cynema: Kotopoulo Lemonato (Lemon Chicken).  She does a great job walking your through making this with great pictures.

I made this at a friend’s house tonight, and she was in charge of a veggie side.  She got the organic basket from Bountiful Baskets this week, and one of the things she got was broccoli rabe (rabe is apparently pronounced like the word “rob”).  I had never heard of this before, but we decided to give it a go in cooking it.  My friend did all the work on this one, following this recipe.  The taste is a mix of a broccoli taste and a leafy vegetable taste like spinach.  It is a tad bitter, but I still really enjoyed it.  I didn’t get a picture of all of it before we ate, my phone was not cooperating, but here is some of it so you can see how it turned out:

This dinner was a great success!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Lemon Herb Chicken

4 Oct

When I got lemons this week, I knew I would make Lemon Herb Chicken.  It’s nothing real fancy, but it’s easy and the chicken is so moist, we love it.  Here is how to do it.

Lemon Herb Chicken

1-2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3 lemons, cut into fourths
Italian blend seasoning

Spray a 9 x 13 dish with cooking spray.  Arrange chicken breasts in dish.  Squeeze lemon quarters over the chicken, then added the lemon quarters in around the chicken breasts.  Sprinkle chicken breasts with Italian blend seasoning.  Bake at 450 F for 30-40 minutes, or until chicken reaches an internal temperature of 165 F.

Tags: , , ,

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 413 other followers

%d bloggers like this: