Name: Crispy Lemon Chicken Thighs
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 15 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (you could buy boneless, but just make sure they have the skin on!); salt and black pepper; 1/4 cup olive oil; 3 cloves garlic, minced; 1/3 cup vermouth or dry white wine; 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (from 2 lemons); Juice of one lemon (cut the other lemon that you zested into 8 wedges); 1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano; 1 teaspoon minced dried thyme leaves

Lemon Chicken Thighs (Skillet Meal)

January 29, 2016

Lemon and chicken go together like peanut butter and jelly. These lemon chicken thighs are so tasty & easy to make-they’re a great quick weeknight dinner!

Is it just me, or does lemon chicken feel like a very nineties food? Or maybe it’s a very eighties food. It smacks of nostalgia to me, maybe because one of the first things that I learned how to cook (if you can really call it “learning to cook”) was frozen chicken breasts, thawed, sprinkled liberally with lemon pepper or Tony Cachere’s Cajun seasoning, and sautéed (probably in a dry skillet-the horror!) until it was cooked all the way through, which basically meant it was shoe leather. No wonder I ate so much honey mustard in my teen years.

But not all things that are “old” are bad, and lemon chicken is a prime example of that. I mean, I don’t really think that lemon chicken went out of style, though I can’t really think of many restaurants that are serving it these days. I mean, lemon just pairs beautifully with the mild flavor of chicken…but these days I make my lemon chicken with real lemon, not lemon pepper (I save my lemon pepper for my Ranch Goldfish).

We don’t have cable television anymore…haven’t for the last four years or so. Most days I’m okay with it, but other days I sorely miss Food Network. I have to take it where I can get it, so when a meager few episodes of Good Eats and Barefoot Contessa showed up on Netflix it was kind of exciting. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched Ina Garten make lemon chicken breasts in the last few months (I’ve watched every episode at least ten times). Every time, that chicken looked better and better. Then I noticed that the recipe was in one of my Barefoot Contessa cookbooks, How Easy is That? (<—affiliate link).
One thing, though…I don’t usually cook chicken breasts. The extra fat in the thighs lends them a better flavor and makes them less likely to dry out, so I’m all about the thighs. A friend posted this cracklin’ chicken thighs recipe from Nom Nom Paleo and I knew exactly how I was going to cook these chicken thighs…cut out the bone, crisp the skin, then follow Ina’s lead for lemon-izing the chicken. Slightly crispy skin (I didn’t crisp mine quite as long because I knew I’d be roasting them and didn’t want them to overcook) and lemony, buttery sauce…these lemon chicken thighs are easy and so delicious. And not nineties at all.

This post contains an affiliate link. This means that if you click through and make a purchase, I will make a small commission from it. This does not affect the cost to you. Thank you for supporting my blog!

Mary

Yield: 4 servings

Crispy Lemon Chicken Thighs

This recipe is adapted from The Barefoot Contessa and NomNom Paleo.

10 minPrep Time:

15 minCook Time:

25 minTotal Time:

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Ingredients

4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (you could buy boneless, but just make sure they have the skin on!)
salt and black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup vermouth or dry white wine
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (from 2 lemons)
Juice of one lemon (cut the other lemon that you zested into 8 wedges)
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon minced dried thyme leaves

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Carefully cut the bones out of the chicken thighs. This is very easy to do-there is only one bone. Just cut around it. Sprinkle both sides of the chicken thighs with salt and pepper.
Preheat the olive oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Brown the chicken, skin side down, for 4 minutes, then flip and brown the other side for one minute. Remove the chicken to a plate.
Remove the pan from the heat. Add the garlic then the vermouth or wine, lemon zest, lemon juice, oregano, thyme, and a teaspoon of salt and stir until combined.
Place the chicken thighs on top of the lemon sauce. Nestle the lemon wedges among the chicken thighs.
Place the chicken in the oven and roast until cooked through, 10-15 minutes. Serve immediately with the pan juices.

https://chattavore.com/lemon-chicken-thighs/

Lemon and chicken go together like peanut butter and jelly. These lemon chicken thighs are so tasty and incredibly easy to make, which makes them perfect for a quick weeknight dinner! | recipe from Chattavore

Crazy Restaurant Experiences (Reader Roundup)

January 27, 2016

Instead of a restaurant review, this week I’m sharing the crazy restaurant experiences that my readers have shared with me!

This week, I won’t be posting a restaurant review. I had a “meh” experience at a Chinese buffet this past weekend. No need to elaborate…it wasn’t awful but there just wasn’t much to say. Instead, I asked my readers to share some of their crazy restaurant experiences. They were happy to oblige. The point is not to talk about specific restaurants, but rather to have a laugh (or a cringe) at some of the wild things that can happen when we dine out!

Kristy – Worst ever was at a popular breakfast restaurant. When the server asked how we wanted our eggs, and we said sunny side up, we got a blank stare. Then he said, “So…scrambled?” It was all downhill from there. Lol. Bad food, bad service, and when we asked for the check, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a huge ball of crumpled up receipts and sorted through them on the table next to us.

Rebecca – I don’t think you want to know mine unless you never want to look at rice the same way again…last time I checked, rice shouldn’t move! And it was at a very popular chain restaurant!

Amanda – We were at a Mexican joint and our basket of chips had wads of gum stuck to the liner. We left.

Ashley – Worst experience was walking in to a Certain Chinese restaurant for the first time and seeing someone face first in their plate. EMTs were out front and the person was deceased.

Jennifer – My boyfriend at the time (now husband) and I went to a fancy restaurant on Valentine’s around 3 to get drinks and a little something to eat before his tennis match. We sat at the bar, they gave us the lunch menus, then as we were ordering they said no you have to order from the overpriced, limited valentines menus. We paid, left, and have never been back- nor do I intend to be back. Poor service to give one menu then play take backsies

Tim – Summertime, Caesar salad prepared table side. Server refused a napkin as the sweat bead rolled off his nose into you-know-where. Luckily I’m on low salt diet. Sent it back. Mortified manager comped our entire check.

Jennifer – Went to a very popular breakfast place in Nashville with friends. My husband and I ended up wearing blueberry syrup (hair, face, ears, clothes) thanks to our waitress. She attempted (about 2 swipes) to wipe it off my back but then left with no apology. I went to the restroom to attempt to clean up and a kind stranger tried to help. When I told her what happened she walked out of the restroom with me, asked for the manager and demanded our meal be free. He just nodded and still, I got no apology. At least the meal was free.

Billie – I was at a pizza place and the waitress tripped and poured a whole pitcher of tea all over me. I was soaked. And it was with a whole group of friends who got to witness and laugh. Better to laugh with them than cry which I felt like doing.

Dallas – I went to a Sunday afternoon birthday dinner at a now defunct Mexican chain. After we waited for about 90 minutes with no food or staff in sight, one of the party went to the kitchen to find our server so he could cancel his order and leave. There was a fistfight going on among the kitchen staff. We eventually got food, then waited another 20 minutes for silverware.

Brooke – A local Chinese restaurant. Two roaches crawled across the table and on the wall while we were eating. At the same time. Left immediately.

Dana – [A roach on the table at a popular local restaurant]. Haven’t been back there. The waitress was so nonchalant about it, you could tell it wasn’t the first time.

Paula – Once I was out of town with a group of co-workers for a conference. Anyway, first when the server brought our salads one of my coworkers noticed a fresh bandaid on her finger and asked about it. Server said she had just sliced her finger making our salads, and had a hard time getting the bleeding to stop. Then later when she was delayed bringing our entrees out she apologized, saying she had just been cleaning the bathroom.

Tammy – I was served half frozen shrimp at a local restaurant after waiting 45 min for my food. They took it back without offering anything else and tried to charge me for it.

Chastity – We did find a roach baked into a pizza, but that was out of the country. While it wasn’t my actual food, my dad did find a pube (yes, I said that) in his taco at a Mexican restaurant…that’s enough to make the entire party stop eating. I doubt you’re surprised.

Brooke – Many years ago we went to a Mexican restaurant (now closed) and the waiter was bringing cheese dip to our table. Before he reached our table he swiped his finger around the outside edge of the bowl to catch the dripping cheese……and then LICKED it off of his finger!

Tell me about your crazy restaurant experiences!

Biscoff Cake with Cookie Butter Frosting

January 25, 2016

Biscoff Cake with cookie butter frosting is every bit as decadent and delicious as it sounds…if not a little more so. It’s easy to make and so worth it!

Have you ever had Biscoff cookies (<–affiliate link)? If not, you need to try them. If you read the Biscoff cookie package, it says that Biscoff cookies are “Europe’s favorite cookie with coffee”. They’re a brand name of speculoos, and they’re also served on Delta Airlines. I’d never had them, though, until a few years ago when I ran across them in Publix. It didn’t take long for me and Philip to get be sold on them. We can’t buy them very often because we just.can’t.stop.eating them. They are OUR favorite cookie with coffee.

Even better, not too long after we discovered Biscoff cookies, we discovered Biscoff spread (<–affiliate link). You guys, I loved cookie butter when cookie butter wasn’t cool. See, cookie butter has become a huge trend in the last several months, but I wrote about ruining a batch of Biscoff fudge years ago! Cookie butter has been popularized by the Trader Joe’s crowd, but we don’t have Trader Joe’s around here. That’s okay, because I’ve got Biscoff spread, which is now called Biscoff Cookie Butter (I’m pretty sure that’s a fairly new development, presumably to capitalize on the cookie butter trend).

At Christmas, I made an amaretto pie, which called for a graham cracker crust (I am going to tweak this recipe then post it for you guys, because it was amahzing <– not a typo). Philip abhors graham crackers, though, so I always try to find a substitute for graham crackers. For this sweet tea lemonade tart, animal crackers made a perfect sub, but for amaretto pie I wanted something, well, spicier. In come Biscoff cookies. I can’t even imagine graham crackers here; Biscoff were fabulous.

Okay, okay, let me get to the cake. When I bought the cookies for the pie I bought two packages so that we could have some to go with coffee (Christmas is all about indulgence, which is probably why I ripped my favorite jeans last week???). I ended up only needing about half of the package for the pie, though, so Philip suggested that I save the second package to incorporate into his birthday cake somehow. My wheels started spinning immediately.

The first thing that I thought of was a cake from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook (<–affiliate link) for a s’mores cake. That cake had (you guessed it) graham crackers ground up as one of the flours. I was always intrigued by the concept, but I never made it because graham crackers. But the idea stuck with me, so I knew that was how I was going to make the Biscoff cake. I decided to swirl in a little coffee (for obvious reasons). And I turned it into a sheet cake because that’s how I roll.

And for the icing? Cookie butter. Biscoff cake with cookie butter frosting. Cookie butter cream cheese frosting, at that. With some Biscoff crumbled on top. I had to wing the recipe a little bit but let me tell you…it was perfect. Completely perfect. I couldn’t have asked for a better cake. Oh, oops. Philip couldn’t have asked for a better birthday cake?.

Have you ever had Biscoff cookies or cookie butter? Whether the answer is yes or no, you’re going to want to make this cake!

This post contains Amazon affiliate links for The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, Biscoff cookies, and Biscoff spread. If you click through these links and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission. This does not affect the cost to you. Thank you for supporting my blog! For more information about affiliate links, see my disclosures.

Yield: 1 9x13 cake, about 20 servings

Biscoff Cake with Cookie Butter Frosting

20 minPrep Time:

40 minCook Time:

1 hrTotal Time:

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Ingredients

20 Biscoff cookies or speculoos (this will take most of the package)
2 cups (250 grams) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon table salt
16 tablespoons (2 sticks or 1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing pan. 2/3 cup (130 grams) granulated sugar
1 cup (190 grams) brown sugar (dark or light is fine)
4 large eggs
2 cups buttermilk
2 tablespoons instant coffee

For the Frosting

8 tablespoons (1 stick or 1/2 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 ounces (1/2 package) cream cheese, at room temperature
3/4 cup Biscoff spread or other cookie butter
2 cups powdered sugar

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 pan with butter and set aside.
Place 14 of the Biscoff cookies into a food processor and process until finely ground. In a medium bowl, whisk the Biscoff "flour" with the all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Place the remaining cookies into a sandwich bag and use a rolling pin to crush into coarse crumbs.
Place the butter and sugars into the bowl of a stand mixer (or use a large bowl with an electric hand mixer). Beat on medium speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally, until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until completely combined after each addition. Add 1/3 of the flour mixture and beat until completely incorporated, then follow with half of the buttermilk. Continue alternating the flour and buttermilk until all has been incorporated.
Pour 1/3 of the cake batter into a separate bowl (the bowl that you used for the flour would be fine for this) and stir in the instant coffee.
Pour the remaining 2/3 of the cake batter into the prepared cake pan. Spoon the coffee cake batter in dollops on top of the cake batter then run a knife through a few times to marble. Bake for 40-45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack.
To make the icing, beat the butter, cream cheese, and cookie butter with an electric mixer until well-combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl then beat in the powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at a time. Spread the frosting on top of the cake then sprinkle with the remaining cookie crumbs. Cut the cake into squares and serve.

https://chattavore.com/biscoff-cake-with-cookie-butter-frosting/

Click here to print the recipe for Biscoff cake with cookie butter frosting!

This Biscoff cake with cookie butter frosting is an easy, moist, and fabulously tasty dessert! | recipe from chattavore.com

Beet Salad with Goat Cheese

January 22, 2016

This beet salad with goat cheese is fresh and full of vibrant flavors. A homemade green goddess dressing ties the whole thing together!

I have never been an eater of beets. My mom loves pickled beets and there’s an ever-present jar of them in my parents’ fridge. To this day, my 37-year-old self has never eaten a pickled beet. It may never happen.

My problem with beets? They smell like dirt. I mean, they grow underground, submerged in the dirt, so on some level it makes sense. However, once I have scrubbed, cooked, and peeled said beets, I don’t want the dirt smell to linger. But it does. Oh yes, yes it does.

That said, I will eat roasted beets. It’s honestly a little odd that I will eat roasted beets but not pickled, because I love pickles. I think it’s just that cold jar of lip-staining red beets soaking in juice that’s so red that it’s almost black that just turns me off.

Here’s the thing about putting things in a salad: if you mix enough great things into a salad, you don’t really notice the individual pieces but rather the sum of the parts. Boy, I am really not selling you guys at the idea of eating beets right now, am I??? Sorry. What I’m getting at is that salads are a great way to start eating beets, or really just about any other form of plant life that you know you should eat (because it’s good for you) and just can’t quite bring yourself to eat.

Honestly, I’ve never loved goat cheese either. Somehow, though, when I mixed beets with goat cheese, greens, and toasted pecans and dressed the whole thing with an amazing green goddess dressing (I borrowed the idea for this salad from Beast + Barrel), everything worked together beautifully. I think I might start eating more beets and goat cheese, whether they’re in this beet salad with goat cheese goat cheese or not.

Mary

Yield: 4 salads

Beet Salad with Goat Cheese

10 minPrep Time:

45 minCook Time:

55 minTotal Time:

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Ingredients

1 large beet, scrubbed (any color/variety is fine)
1/4 cup chopped pecans.
1 bag mixed greens
1/2 cup green goddess dressing (bottled is fine, but I used Elise Bauer’s recipe from Simply Recipes)
2 ounces goat cheese

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Wrap the beet in foil. Place the beet in the oven and roast for about 45 minutes. Allow to cool for a few minutes then peel the beet (the skin should slip away easily when rubbed with a paper towel). Quarter the beets then thinly slice the quarters. Set aside.
While the beet is roasting, toast the pecans in a dry skillet until lightly browned. Pour into a bowl and set aside.
Divide the greens among 4 bowls. Drizzle each bowl with two tablespoons of dressing.
Crumble the goat cheese and sprinkle the goat cheese over the bowls. Sprinkle each salad with a tablespoon of pecans. Divide the beets among the bowls. Serve immediately.

https://chattavore.com/beet-salad-with-goat-cheese/

Click here to print the recipe for beet salad with goat cheese!

This beet salad with goat cheese is fresh and full of vibrant flavors. A homemade green goddess dressing ties the whole thing together! | recipe from Chattavore.com

Las Morelianas

January 21, 2016

If you don’t know that Las Morelianas is there, you might miss it. They serve great Mexican food in Hixson!

I love getting restaurant recommendations from readers. Love it! Keep them coming, you guys. It might take me a little while to get to them, but I promise that I listen when people tell me to go somewhere. A few months back, a reader sent me a message on Facebook and told me that I needed to get to Las Morelianas. When I asked him where it was, I was surprised to find out that it was in Hixson. Turns out it’s contained within the Mexican grocery store on Highway 153, near Wal-mart.

We finally made it in there this past weekend. If I hadn’t done a little reading on Yelp, I would have had no idea where to find the restaurant. If you walk in the door on the left side of the building, take a left by the cash register, then take a right, you’ll end up in the restaurant. A very friendly man greeted us and brought us menus and drinks.

The menu that I had seen online had an extremely limited selection, but the menus we were given had several pages. There are several appetizers, lunch specials, and a couple of burritos. There are a wide variety of tacos and some sandwiches (aka tortas), quesadillas, and some homemade specialties. The menu features quite a few seafood dishes and some specials, like chilaquiles and fajitas. There are also several specials listed above the counter that come with just chicken or beef and include a 16-ounce drink.

We ordered some chips and salsa, of course. How do you go to a Mexican restaurant and not eat chips and salsa? And how many of you can relate to the sentiment below? Origins of this meme unknown. The chips were very good, obviously freshly fried because there were a couple with soft spots in them. I didn’t mind that because I knew they were made there. The salsa was extremely tasty, with lots of cilantro, lime, and salt balanced with onion and garlic and tomatoes that weren’t too chunky but not too smooth either. We were also served several different smooth salsas with our meal (the orangey one was automatically brought to our table, but our server told us about the green salsa and the red, which is habanero). All three of those were too spicy for me…I am a lightweight (you guys know that) but Philip liked them all and said they were delicious.

I teetered on the edge of ordering a Milaneza torta, chicken or steak pounded thin, breaded, and fried, served on a torta roll (a special bun) ? with lettuce, tomato, onion, jalapeño, and avocado plus a side of fries. I decided ultimately that my first visit called for tacos ?, though, so I went for the carnitas (seasoned, shredded pork) and pescado (fish). The tacos are served traditional-style…two corn tortillas, chopped onions, and cilantro, plus lime wedges. Oddly, this is the only way that I can eat raw onions without feeling like I’m going to burst into tears. The carnitas were amazing…very tender, perfectly seasoned, and finely shredded. The fish was also delicious, seasoned well and shredded, topped with some tomato in addition to the onion and cilantro and served with a chipotle for drizzling.

Philip took one look at the menu and knew exactly what he was going to order: lengua tacos. Yes, that’s tongue. If you read my Taqueria Jalisco post, you know that not only is he not afraid to eat things that make other people shudder, he loves beef tongue. Honestly, while it does freak me out just a little too much to actually order it in a restaurant, I have tasted his and it really is quite good…like a very tender pot roast. He said that it was very good…I didn’t taste these so I’ll just have to take his word for it!

We also ordered some beans and rice. It was a generous portion of each, enough for us to share. The beans were well-seasoned and were mashed but not pureed to a smooth consistency like some of the refried beans that you might end up with at a Mexican restaurant. They were very good. The rice had lots of vegetables and was also well-seasoned and a nice texture. I am a weirdo, I know, but I thought the little crocks they served them in were cute as well.

After we finished eating (by the way, our pre-tip total was $16 and some change…not bad at all!), we perused the grocery store for a few minutes. There are tons of hard to find products, like dried chilies, tamarind pods, and other spices used in traditional Mexican cooking. I almost bought a bag of limon y sal (salt and lime) Fritos, after hearing Matthew and Molly talk about them on the Spilled Milk podcast, but decided to hold off until I need Fritos to go with chili or something like that since I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay out of the bag once it was opened. And…I finally found a place to get locally made tortillas and sorta rolls!

So, if you never knew that Las Morelianas existed, now you know. It’s definitely not fancy but it sure is delicious. Obviously I am not one to speak to authenticity of a Mexican joint but there were quite a few Hispanic folks dining in there so I am guessing it’s pretty legit….but they definitely have some options for the more timid gringos too. Go check it out!

Las Morelianas is located at 5622 Highway 153, Hixson, Tennessee, 37343. You can call them at (423) 877-7115. They are open daily from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., though I am not sure if those hours are for both the grocery store and the restaurant. If anyone knows, please let me know! They do not have a website or an “official” Facebook page, but you can “like” this page on Facebook to see others’ reviews and check-ins. By the way, Las Morelianas has a 5-star rating on Yelp out of quite a few reviews.

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