Chicken with Pesto-Mushroom Cream Sauce

25 Thursday Mar 2010

Posted by Karen B. in Food, Simple Meals for the Avid Cook

As a working gal who happens to love to cook I am always looking for recipes that are delicious and fairly easy. Mind you, the recipe I’ve listed below isn’t the “open a can, throw in a piece of meat” type of recipe but it is really, really good and worth the few extra steps that it takes to prepare—mostly under 30 minutes! The recipe is from a new cookbook I received, “The Best Simple Recipes” by America’s Test Kitchen.

Recipe: Chicken with Pesto-Mushroom Cream Sauce

Summary: Relatively Simple

Ingredients

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
Salt & pepper
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
10 ounces white mushrooms, sliced
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup heavy cream (I used 3/4 cup and made up the difference in the broth)
1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth (I used 3/4 cup, see above note)
1/2 cup basil pesto (store bought)
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Instructions

Pat chicken dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in large skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. Cook chicken until golden brown, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate and tent with foil. Add remaining oil to skillet and cook mushrooms until browned, about 5 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook about 1 minute. Add cream, broth and chicken to skillet, scraping any browned bits from skillet and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until chicken is cooked through, about 15-20 minutes. Transfer chicken to serving platter and tent with foil. Return skillet to medium-high heat and simmer until sauce is thickened, about 5-7 minutes. Off heat, stir in pesto and lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Pour sauce over chicken and serve.

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I served this with French green beans and white and wild rice and it was very yummy! Enjoy!

Another Rainy Weekend

02 Tuesday Mar 2010

Posted by Karen B. in Food, Misc

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Rain, rain go away, come again another day. All the gardeners want to play outdoors! After an incredible glimpse of what Spring will look like last weekend, we are headed for another rainy weekend this coming Saturday. Don’t get me wrong, I love the rain and living in Southern California gives me an appreciation for any precipitation that might come our way. That said, I truly wanted to continue with my clean up of the back yard this weekend.

Last Saturday I mapped out the plants I’ll need to spruce up the garden for Spring (herbs for my herb garden, Japanese boxwood’s, Iceberg roses and impatiens). I cleaned out the secret garden and trimmed the ugly leaves off the hydrangeas. I’ve decided to add some more Japanese boxwood’s, the poor mans hardscape, around the patio flower bed. I had planted some Sweet Pea seeds in late fall and while they have sprouted up, they are only about 8″ tall and aren’t showing much promise. The seeds were old and maybe that had something to do with it. The garden experts always say you can plant them in late October if you want early blooms so I guess I’ll blame the age of the seeds on the failure.

So instead of working in the garden this weekend I think I’ll cook. Our youngest son, 27 years, is temporarily living with us. He will enjoy the Cinnamon Bun Pancakes from Pioneer Woman’s site. Spring is only 4 more weeks away, I will try to be patient.

If you have any suggestions on growing Sweet Peas I’d love to hear from you.