Dinner 11 - Fun dining with friends!

Well today was a quite fun meal!  With many of the renovations underway in the apartment, we finally felt like inviting some friends over for a nice evening.  Nath and Koz, two of Julien's closest friends came to share in the fun.  The saddest part was - we had so much fun that we didn't take any pictures!  So - I will link similar ones from the internet :P  The meal consisted of salad, hot vichyssoise soup (my mother's), chicken piccata and finally dessert - pretzel jello dessert as well as my mother's apple cake!

http://www.cookstr.com/recipes/vichyssoise
(Ill post this recipe in a later post)

Chicken piccata

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, each 8 to 9 oz., cut in half horizontally and pounded 1/4 inch thick
• Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 Tbs. olive oil
• 3 Tbs. unsalted butter
• 1 Tbs. minced shallot
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 3 Tbs. fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 cup chicken broth
• 2 Tbs. capers, drained
• 2 Tbs. minced fresh flat-leaf parsley

Directions:

Season the chicken on both sides with salt and pepper. Place the flour in a shallow bowl and dredge the chicken in it. Shake off the excess.

In the nonstick fry pan over medium-high heat, warm 2 Tbs. of the olive oil. Place 2 pieces of chicken in the pan and cook, turning once, until browned on both sides, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Transfer to a platter or individual plates. Warm the remaining 1 Tbs. oil in the pan and repeat to brown the remaining chicken.

Reduce the heat to medium and melt 1 Tbs. of the butter in the pan. Add the shallot and cook until softened and golden brown, about 30 seconds. Add the wine, lemon juice and broth, increase the heat to medium-high and cook until the liquid is slightly reduced, about 5 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the remaining 2 Tbs. butter, the capers and parsley. Season with salt and pepper. Drizzle the sauce over the chicken and pass any remaining sauce alongside. Serve immediately. Serves 4.

Williams-Sonoma Kitchen.

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/chicken-piccata.html

and Finally pretzel jello for dessert

1 stick butter (melted)

1 1/2 c. crushed pretzels
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese
1 lg. container Cool Whip
1 c. sugar
1 (6 oz.) pkg. strawberry Jello
1 lg. pkg. frozen strawberries

 

First off, take the pretzels and put in a lg ziploc bag. Use a rolling pin and really crush thought pretzels.  Make sure theyre ppretty fine, but I still like it a little chunky!  Too chunky and it won't create a real crust.

Now, all ya do is mix the melted butter with the pretzels and I say 1/3 cup of sugar.  Now if I buy non salted or lightly salted pretzels (which I prefer) I add less sugar because I dont like things sickening sweet!  So now take this mixture, and press it into a 9x13 pan.  Bake at 350 for 6 minutes so that the pretzels create a nice crust. 

 

In a mixing bowl, beat together the cool whip, cream cheese and about 1/4 cup sugar - again sugar to your liking.  Put the mixture on top of the cooked pretzel crust and make sure to really get it to the edges of the pan.

In a pot, boil water.  take off the burner, and add 1 lg package or 2 small packages of jello - I prefer strawberry banana or strawberry/raspberry.  Add frozen strawberries.

And voila!  We had a great dinner party that ended by watching a move on the big screen :)