Meal of the Day: Chicken Piccata

I was 9 years old when my youngest cousin was born.  He was another addition to the grandchildren on my Dad's side of the family that ended the streak of granddaughters.  I remember his birthday parties were a mixture of Italian catering and Filipino food.  This menu was stapled into my memory that it even transferred over to my daughter's birthday parties in the past years.  Anyway, I remember filling up my plate with chicken piccata all the time.  I don't know what it was about this dish- whether because my older cousins ate it or I was just curious about the sauce, I ate it all the time.  Now years down the road, my baby cousin just turned 17 and his birthday parties have ended a long time ago.  I haven't had any good chicken piccata since then.  I figured, why not make my own?  I've become a cooking fiend and love challenging myself to making different dishes.  Unfortunately I have no picture of how this dish turned out because 1. I swallowed my meal roughly 30 seconds after I finished cooking it and 2. I plainly forgot to take a picture.


INGREDIENTS:
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 egg
3 TBSP lemon juice, or 1 medium freshly squeezed lemon
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 TSP garlic powder
1/8 TSP cayenne powder
1/4 cup butter
2 TSP chicken bouillon powder
1/2 cup boiling water
1 bag egg noodles
1/2 onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced real thin
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup sliced onions, cut into morsels

STEP 1: Remove any excess fat on the chicken breasts.  Cut each breasts into quarters, long-wise like chicken strips.

STEP 2: In a small bowl, beat egg and 1 TBSP of lemon juice.

STEP 3: In a shallow bowl or dish, mix together flour, garlic powder and cayenne powder.  Dip the chicken into the egg/lemon mixture then season in flour.

STEP 4: Melt butter in a pan.  Place the chicken into pan and cook on each side until brown.

STEP 5: Dissolve the bouillon in boiling water.  Pour remaining lemon juice into water.  Once blended, pour liquid into skillet.  Cover and let simmer for 20 minutes.  After 10 minutes, turn chicken over and add all vegetables into skillet.

STEP 6: Cook egg noodles as directed on bag.  Drain when done.

Serve noodles and chicken with vegetables and enjoy!

Revamping Your Leftovers

Everyone has their likes and dislikes about leftovers.  Either it's enough to feed 1 mouth or not enough to feed 3 hungry mouths.  But this is where you dive into your creative side of cooking.  Even if you don't have that, everyone is creative with their appetite.  When your tummy starts grumbling and wants you to put something in your belly, you start to imagine what will satisfy your taste buds.  You want to fill that void of hunger and make some use of your leftovers before they get thrown into the garbage.  There's no need to waste food if there are people who can't afford to eat a meal everyday (just saying).

So, what I had in my fridge was roughly 2 cups of white rice and 1 strip of pork belly.  Luckily, I did a quick run to the supermarket to pick up some essential produce that I always have in stock.  I ended up making torta (tour-tah) or an omelette with ground beef and fried rice with vegetables.

Torta (on left) and fried rice with veggies (on right)

First Time for Everything

Let's start this first entry as a tribute to one of my favorite daytime programs: The Chew.

Last week's theme was Mother's Day and each host's mother visited the show throughout the week.  The episode that I was watching while sick on the couch was with Michael Symon's mother, Angel.  While paying tribute to his Greek heritage, Michael made his Egg and Lemon soup (or known as avgolemono soup) in honor of his mother's remedy whenever feeling sick or under the weather.  It was an instant hit to my husband and daughter when I re-created this later that night.  So, I share with you my take on this traditional soup.