Chicken Cacciatore

Chicken Caccitore, one of my favorite meals! This dish is very easy to make and tastes scrumptious. I have made a few tweaks to the original recipe. One of the keys to this recipe is the dicing of the onions. My mom used to make dishes with huge onion pieces I could not stand. When onions are diced they impart their sweet flavor and are not obnoxious to eat. Another trick is to use fresh tomatoes instead of canned tomatoes, it gives it a great fresh taste.

Chicken Cacciatore

Tastes Like Italy

INGREDIENTS

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 2-3 chicken breasts or 6 chicken thighs
• 1 medium onion, diced
• bunch of mushrooms, sliced
• 4 whole tomatoes, diced
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
• 1-2 teaspoons tomato paste

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat oil in pan. Add the onions and cook until they are golden, and remove from pan. Coat the chicken with flour by shaking it in a ziplock bag a few pieces at a time.

2. Add chicken to the same pan the onions were cooked in. Cook the chicken until it is golden on both sides.

3. Add mushrooms to pan. Cook for 5 minutes.

4. Add the remaining ingredients to the pan, simmer on low 40 minutes.

5. Serve over noodles or rice. I like serving this with angel hair pasta and my kids love rotini. You can also top with cheese. The picture was topped with Romano cheese. Enjoy!

I like to cook in a cast iron skillet to give it plenty of flavor.

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The Best Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

These pumpkin cookies are so delicious!  I like to make this recipe every fall for the holidays.

I like to use real pumpkin, but canned pumpkin works too. I like to get my pumpkin fresh from a farm, cook it up and make the cookies. I even had enough extra this year to make pumpkin chocolate chip ice cream.

This is a sugar pumpkin, because it has black spots on the outer layer.  The smaller the pumpkin the better.

The following method may be used to prepare any winter squash. To prepare the pumpkin the pumpkin for cooking, cut the pumpkin in half, a butcher knife works well, put the pumpkin in a cake pan with about 1/2" of water.  Turn the oven to 375 and cook the pumpkin for 30-45 minutes, or until the pumpkin is fork tender.

Remove from the oven and let cool. Scoop out the inside of the pumpkin with a spoon and blend in blender. The recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups of pumpkin. If you don't use it all you can freeze the rest and save for more cookies, a soup, bread etc.

The Best Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Author: The Recipe Is Based On A Recipe From Vicki At SunGold Farms.

Yield: 48

Prep Time: 10 Min Cook time: 12 Min

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups or 15 ounce can of pureed squash or pumpkin
• 2 1/2-2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp ground allspice
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1 bag of chocolate chips
• 1 1/2 cups chopped pecans (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS:

2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars until fluffy.
4. Beat in the eggs and squash.
5. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and spices; add to mixture, stirring until well blended.
6. Stir in raisins and nuts.
7. Spoon onto cookie sheets.
8. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until edges are golden.

*This recipe can be used with almost any winter squash. See instructions above on how to prepare.

*Baker's tip, the dough is pretty runny, but because of all the baking powder and soda, they rise up quite nicely.

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