I went a little crazy today. I don’t normally cook this much, but we were home all day and I thought I would take advantage of the time and make a nice Sunday dinner. I have had this chicken recipe on hand for a while now, and I figured that since I have been eating Lean Cuisines for the last week because Josh has been working the swing shift, I deserved a nice, fattening, comfort dinner. I have also decided that Sundays will be the day we are allowed dessert, since we are trying to cut back on sweets. So, on the menu for today: Chicken Breasts in Caper Cream Sauce, Homemade French Bread, Steamed Broccoli, and Doubletree Chocolate Chip Cookies.
First was the French bread. I am not a bread baker, but have always wanted to learn. I have failed several times, but I know that practice makes perfect. So I got out a cookbook I have not used in awhile – The Great Big Baking Book – and found a recipe for French bread. I was actually quite surprised to see that the only ingredients were yeast, water, salt and flour. This alone probably shows my bread ignorance!! I think that it turned out quite nicely. Sundays are probably the only day of the week that I have enough time to make bread, but I should start doing it more often!
A simple recipe for French Bread.
Ingredients
- 1 package active dry yeast
- 2 c lukewarm water
- 1 T water
- 6-8 c flour
- cornmeal, for sprinkling
Instructions
- Combine the yeast and the water and let sit for 15 minutes. Add the salt.
- Add the flour, 1 cup at a time, beating with a wooden spoon. Add in just enough flour to make a smooth dough.
- Flour a work surface and transfer the dough. Knead until smooth and elastic.
- Shape the dough into a ball and place in a greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap. Leave to rise in a warm area until doubled in size, 2-4 hours.
- Lightly flour a work surface and transfer the dough. Separate the dough into 2 equal portions. Shape into 2 long loaves. Sprinkle a baking sheet with cornmeal and transfer the loaves to the baking sheet. Let rise for 5 minutes.
- Using a sharp knife, score the tops of the loaves. Brush the loaves with water and place in a cold oven. Bring an oven safe pan of water to a boil and place at the bottom of the oven. Turn the oven on to 400F.
- Bake until golden and crust, about 40 minutes. Cool on a rack.
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- recipe from The Great Big Baking Book
**Changes I made to the recipe**
Not much – the only thing I did was to brush on a butter, garlic, herb mixture when the bread had about 10 minutes left to cook. I found that I only needed about 5 cups of flour to make the dough consistency, and I only needed to cook it about 30 minutes
Next up was the chicken. I loved this recipe, and so did Josh. I’m sure you can make this recipe a little healthier by using half-and-half instead of cream, and olive oil instead of butter, but today was one of those full-fat days!!
Boneless chicken breasts are cooked in a skillet and served with a creamy caper sauce.
Ingredients
- 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
- 1 t lemon pepper
- 1 t salt
- 1 t dried dill weed
- 1 t garlic powder
- 3 T butter
- 1/2 c whipping cream
- 2 T capers, drained and rinsed
Instructions
- Season the chicken breasts with lemon pepper, salt, dill weed adn garlic powder.
- Melt the butter in a medium skillet over medium heat. Place the chicken breasts in the pan and increase the temperature to medium-high. Cook the chicken until browned, about 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium and cook until the chicken is cooked through, another 5 to 7 minutes. Remove the chicken to a plate and cover with foil to keep warm.
- Increase the heat to high. Whisk in the whipping cream, whisking and cooking until a thick sauce is formed. Stir in the capers. Serve the sauce over the chicken.
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- from allrecipes.com
**Changes I made to the recipe**
One of the things I love the most about allrecipes.com is that you are able to read other’s reviews. So many of them said to double the sauce – I wish I would have tripled it. Besides the fact that my husband likes everything really “saucey”, there really was not enough for 4 chicken breasts. I served this over linguine noodles, and maybe that was why I felt like I needed more sauce.
And lastly were the cookies. Josh and I went to Seattle a few months back and stayed at a Doubletree Hotel. Ever since then, we have been talking about their cookies (which we probably each ate a dozen of while we were there!!) I have been searching for a knock-off recipe. Most of them are similar, will only small differences. I tried one off of allreicpes awhile back, and although they were good, they were still off from the Doubletree cookies. So I combined a few and came up with today’s try. The taste was great. I think these tasted very similar, but they ended up very flat, and the Doubletree cookies are not flat at all. I think that I need to add some baking powder next time, and maybe that will help. Regardless of the flatness of these cookies, they tasted great!!
A chocolate chip cookie with oats, walnuts and chocolate.
Ingredients
- 1/2 c rolled oats
- 2 1/4 c flour
- 1 1/2 t baking soda
- 1 t salt
- 1/4 t cinnamon
- 1 c butter, softened
- 3/4 c brown sugar
- 3/4 c granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 t vanilla
- 1/2 t lemon juice
- 2 eggs
- 1 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1 c milk chocolate chips
- 1 1/2 c walnuts
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F
- Grind the oats in a food processor or blender until fine.
- Combine the oats, flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
- In a separate bowl, cream butter, sugars, and vanilla. Add eggs.
- Stir the dry ingredients into the creamed butter mixture and mix until well incorporated.
- Finely chop the walnuts and chocolate chips and add to the mixture.
- Spoon large heaps onto an un-greased cookie sheet and cook until light brown – 12 to 14 minutes
Yay! I can comment now
I have some capers just begging to be used in that chicken dish. Looks wonderful.
Do you think I could get away with omitting the nuts in the cookies? I’ve wanted to try this recipe for quite awhile!
I guess it just depends on what you are going for. Every Doubletree “knock off” recipe I have seen has had nuts – usually walnuts, but all I had on hand was pecans. If you just don’t like the taste, I chopped mine up really fine so I didn’t really taste an over “nutty” taste. If you just don’t like nuts at all, leave them out. The recipe isn’t perfectly like the Doubletree cookies, but it would still make a great chocolate chip cookie without the nuts!
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