Tags
asparagus, basil, Blogs, chicken, Cooking, dinner, family, homemade delish, pesto, prosciutto, recipes, walnuts, YUM
As we get into our fall routine; one of the first things to suffer is usually the quality of dinners at our house. Last evening, the boys had soccer practice, and we had a parent orientation meeting at the boys’ new school — the newly constructed intermediate school in our district. I did, however, have some “free” time in the afternoon and decided to take on a new recipe (to me) that I’ve been dying to make.
I found it on one of my favorite foodie blogs, Homemade Delish, and, with a few tweaks, recreated it for dinner. I did a most of the prep ahead of time, and it only took about fifteen minutes to pull together before soccer practice.
One of my favorite flavors in the dish is the basil walnut pesto, and it was the first time I’d made pesto from scratch (recipe from Once Upon a Chef)
Ingredients: Two cups loosely packed basil leaves, two cloves chopped garlic, 1/3 cup walnut pieces, 1/2 cup shredded Parmigiana-Reggiano, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, 2/3 cup olive oil.
Directions: Combine garlic and walnuts in a small food processor until chopped finely. Add basil leaves, salt, and pepper to processor and blend. Add olive oil in small amounts and process till smooth. Add cheese and blend till combined. Store in an air-tight container (up to a week) in the refrigerator.
For the Chicken…..
Pound four boneless chicken breasts flat, dip them in an egg/milk wash, and coat each breast, using a Ziploc bag in which the following ingredients have been combined: one cup plain bread crumbs, one tablespoon Italian seasoning mix, 1/4 cup shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano, and 1/4 cup flour.
Heat 1/4 cup olive oil in a large skillet and cook the chicken for about 4 minutes per side. Set aside on a paper towel lined plate.
Meanwhile….
Prepare a “bunch” of fresh asparagus by cutting off the rough stem ends and cooking in a shallow pan of boiling water.
Assemble…
Plate the chicken breast, top with pesto (mixed with a bit of the asparagus water), wrap the asparagus in proscuitto and place on top of pesto. I also drizzled some marinara sauce on top.
squirrel circus 
Looks Delish. Thanks for the shout out
Thanks for the inspiration!
Ok, you’ve never made risotto & I’ve never made pesto. You’ve convinced me already that I need to do this. I like everything about this recipe.
You have to! It’s also yummy with freshly sliced tomato on crusty bread for an easy panini.
I will give it a try & after this weekend (moved Niki & omg what a horrendous experience that was!) I need very easy, soothing comfort food.
Ouch — sorry to hear that the move didn’t go as smoothly as hoped. With it being the first day of school here, soccer practice, forms to fill out, etc., I”m fairly certain we’ll be having pizza for dinner tonight 🙂
To say the move did not go well is such an understatement – Sept 3rd & when they got the key, there was a lot of the previous tenant’s junk still in there (including icky mattresses). They got a cleaning crew who took all the trash & garbage & heaved it off the 2nd floor stairway down into the parking lane of the downstair’s tenant. Walls that were supposed to have been painted weren’t… but the absolute highlight of the day was when the landlord’s wife came at me after Niki told her that the place was a mess. She said Niki had “attacked her” & that she didn’t want them moving in. I called her bluff when the landlord (good guy we think) walked in & said “fine I’ll wait right here while you go get the checkbook & refund every penny they’ve put down. Turns out she wasn’t the landlord’s wife but crazyazz GF & he got rid of her at which point we went room by room discussing what needed to be corrected.
Well one good thing about the move was that after moving all of her stuff I came home & thought “ok if I had to move tomorrow…and I felt sick”. So I’ve been in the closet weeding out clothes that I’ll never wear in a million years. It’s painful, this hurts…but I’m doing it. Some for the trash and a lot for charity.
I don’t envy you the forms & I’m so glad that my daughter can do all that herself. Pizza is a great choice.
Wow! That WAS a hassle for you all. I hope the landlord follows through on everything he needs to do. And look at YOU, cleaning out your closet — that’s terrific (daunting, I’m sure, though)!
Could I have some extra asparagus instead of chicken with mine, please? LOL – all the same looks good. Some utterly useless info: they grow the most divine asparagus on a river bank in the Namibian (in south western Africa) desert – something about the soil being just right. Who would have guessed?
Foodie field trip! I’ll have to remember that….if I’m ever in the “neighborhood” 😉
Sure, never know when you might be on the other side of the atlantic, oops – how did I get here?
Don’t laugh — it has certainly happened to me across state lines. New Jersey? Oops!
When you say state lines, is it like one side of the sign is one state, the other side another?
Sort of, only in my case, it was a toll bridge out of one state and into another. I was driving somewhere with the boys and got into a lane that ONLY led up onto this bridge and out of town. Oops.
LOL sounds like the Zimbabwe/Zambia border in part. It’s a painted line. Now you’re in Zimbabwe, let’s hop over to Zambia, now back to Zim etc. The novelty ran out very quickly.
I can imagine! BTW, I read an interesting memoir this summer by son of white Zimbabwean farmers trying to hold onto their farm during Mugabe liberation movement — The Last Resort by Douglas Rogers. Heard of it?
Not that particular one, but there are so many similar stories out there – it’s so very sad that things can go from so good to so bad!
Too true.
Hope you have a happy weekend, though
Pingback: Ingredient of the Month: Basil | A Lot On Your Plate
Yes! The link worked 🙂 Thank you so much for adding your recipe to my “Ingredient of the Month” post! You can check it out here: http://alotonyourplate.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/ingredient-of-the-month-basil
Terrific!! Thanks for including me 🙂