Creamy Herb Chicken

Earlier this weekend, I had decided on chicken for dinner tonight and after looking through my pins on Pinterest I came across the recipe for Creamy Herb Chicken.

Creamy Herb Chicken

Ingredients For The Chicken:

• 4 chicken breasts (pounded ½-inch thin)
• 2 teaspoons each of onion powder and garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon fresh chopped parsley
• ½ teaspoon each of dried thyme and dried rosemary
• salt and pepper, to season

For The Sauce:

• 4 cloves garlic, minced (or 1 tablespoon minced garlic)
• 1 teaspoon fresh chopped parsley
• ½ teaspoon each of dried thyme and dried rosemary
• 1 cup milk (half and half and heavy cream will also work)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch mixed with 1 tablespoon water, until smooth

Instructions

1. Coat chicken breasts with the onion and garlic powders and herbs. Season generously with salt and pepper.
2. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil a large pan or skillet over medium-high heat and cook chicken breasts until opaque and no longer pink inside (about 5 minutes each side, depending on thickness). Transfer to a plate; set aside.
3. To the same pan or skillet, heat another 2 teaspoons of olive oil and sauté garlic, with parsley, thyme and rosemary, for about 1 minute, or until fragrant.
4. Stir in milk (or cream); season with salt and pepper, to taste.
5. Bring to a boil; add the cornstarch mixture to the center of the pan, quickly stirring, until sauce has thickened slightly. Reduce heat and simmer gently for a further minute to allow the sauce to thicken more.
6. Return chicken to the skillet. Sprinkle with extra herbs if desired. Serve immediately.

Boy, was that full of flavor! Almost too much in my opinion, but Tom said he liked it, soooo, I'd say pickers can't be choosers. Another comment would be that it's a lot of food. I think a half of a chicken breast would have been adequate as a portion size.

Preserving Rose in Resin

Do you remember this day?

Well, I do. After I took this picture, Tom pulled a rose off of the floral arrangement and gave it to me to save.

I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do with it. My initial thought was to preserve it with glycerine, but after some Internet research I ultimately decided to dry it and put it in a vessel in resin. I thought of using a wine glass at first, I have one that’s big enough, but it would be so top heavy that with my luck, it would topple over and break. The next best idea was a small, round bowl, and that’s what we decided to go with.
The first step was drying the rose. I think I would have preferred the method using silica gel, but I didn’t have any, so we just hung the rose upside down and let it dry for a few weeks. Then, today, we started working on the project. One of the YouTube videos that I watched made me think that it would take several days to complete the project, but after reading the instructions on the resin that I’d bought, we decided to do this project in one day. We had bought Castin’ Craft Clear Polyester Casting Resin along with the Castin' Craft Casting Catalyst. I’d decided to do five separate pours, with each pour being about a ½ inch high in the bowl, so I figured out how much resin I’d need for each pour and marked five cups along with the amount of catalyst needed for each layer.

We started by cutting the rose right where the stem met the flower.

We mixed the resin and catalyst for one minute, then poured it into the bowl.

Then we put the rose in.

It took about 30 minutes of sitting there trying to stand up the rose before the layer hardened enough for the rose to stand alone.

Then we mixed the second cup of resin and poured it over the rose; we initially tried to pipette the resin in between the petals, but we got impatient. We took some wooden skewers and tried to get the resin in between the petals – and hopefully reshape the rose a little bit (it had flattened a little while it dried).

We played with it a little bit too much, and parts of the rose started to flake off into the resin. We were able to suck some of the flakes out with the pipette, and after the resin had gelled a little, we were able to use the skewers to pull some out, but there’s still a bunch in there. We waited until the layer gelled before starting the next one.
We mixed up the third batch of resin and poured that over the rose and waited about 30 minutes, picking out flakes here and there.

The fourth and fifth batches were done one right after the other.

We needed to run some errands, so I got a shower. When I got out, Tom told me that the project was generating a huge amount of heat. It was, and the bubbles that had continued to be generated were now stationary, never having escaped the hardening of the resin. I decided that I could deal with that, it looked a little like dew so, we went out to run the errands. When we came back, we found this.

It looks like the resin cracked – more than likely from the heat. How sad is that? I had one chance to do this right and I screwed up. I will never, ever listen to Tom again! No, I probably will, but I’m so disappointed that I let him talk me in to doing the last two layers at the same time.

Pressure Cooker Pot Roast with Vegetables

Of three options that Tom and I had planned for dinners this weekend, pot roast was selected for tonight. A brief, yet predictable, search on Pinterest yielded a recipe for Pressure Cooker Pot Roast with Vegetables.

Pressure Cooker Pot Roast with Vegetables

Ingredients

• 3 pounds boneless beef sirloin tip roast
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 4 large potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 4 large carrots, cut into 2-inch pieces
• 1 large onion, cut into wedges
• 2 cups water
• 1 teaspoon beef bouillon granules
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon pepper
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 3 tablespoons cold water

Directions

1. In a pressure cooker, brown roast in oil on all sides. Add potatoes, carrots, onions and water.
2. Close cover securely and place pressure regulator on vent pipe. Bring cooker to full pressure over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-high and cook for 40 minutes (pressure regulator should maintain a slow, steady rocking motion; adjust heat if needed).
3. Remove from the heat and allow pressure to drop on it's own. Remove meat and vegetables and keep warm.
4. Bring cooking juices in pressure cooker to a boil. Add bouillon, salt and pepper. Combine cornstarch and cold water until smooth, then stir into juices. Bring to a boil, cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened.
5. Serve with roast and vegetables.

Now, I, of course, made a few changes. I used a chuck roast, about 1½ pounds of baby red potatoes, a tiny bit of celery (instead of carrots), a ¼ cup of diced onions, a bouillon cube and about 1½ ¼ cup measures of flour instead of cornstarch. And I seasoned the roast with the salt and pepper prior to browning it. I thought it was the best pot roast that I've made since I got this pressure cooker. There doesn't seem to be enough gravy for leftovers, so I just added another 2 cups of water, the salt, pepper and bouillon cube, and the flour to what we hadn't used, yet, and there you have it!

Classic Southern Fried Pork Chops

Tonight's dinner was going to be pork chops, so after looking through Pinterest for some ideas, I came across a recipe for Classic Southern Fried Pork Chops that looked like it could be good.

Classic Southern Fried Pork Chops

Ingredients

• 4 bone-in pork chops
• 1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tsp granulated garlic
• 1 tsp granulated onion
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
• ½ tsp cayenne pepper plus more to taste
• 4 bacon strips
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• ½ cup all-purpose flour

Instructions

1. In a small bowl, combine granulated garlic, onion, salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper.
2. Pat dry pork chops with a paper towel. Using your hands, rub Dijon mustard all over the pork chops.
3. Sprinkle the spice mix and evenly rub into the chops on each side.
4. Dredge in flour really well on both sides and set aside.
5. Preheat a large, about 12-13-inch, heavy (cast iron is recommended) frying pan over medium-high heat.
6. Fry the bacon strips, on both sides, until crisp and fat has rendered out. Remove the bacon and reserve for other uses.
7. Add vegetable oil to the frying pan. Let the oil warm up to cooking temperature, about 325F.
8. Dredge each pork chop in flour again, making sure each side is covered really well. Place in the frying pan and cook over medium heat about 4-5 minutes per side, until deep golden brown and the internal temperature of the pork reached 145F. Cooking time will depend on the thickness of the pork chops you are using.
9. Remove pork chops, place on a platter and cover with foil and let rest for 3 minutes before serving.

Tom thought that they were good, but he wanted a crispier coating. I thought that the flavor was good, too, but the pork chops were so big that I couldn't finish mine.