Two Recipes

Happy Sunday!  I hope everyone is having a relaxing Sunday!  I went to a Sunday School class this morning and loved it!  I hope that I can become a regular with going to Sunday School.  We also got a new pastor this week at our church and he did a wonderful job!  It is such an exciting time at out church right now because of these changes and I look forward to seeing how God uses Pastor Rick in our church. 

I promised you some recipes and I am about to deliver!  The first one I am going to share with you is a pasta dish that Leslie would fix in Panama and it's one of my favorite dishes.  I am a pasta freak and could eat pasta everyday of the week if it wasn't so bad for me!  Now my estimates for ingredients are going to be based on what I like.  The thing I have found out and LOVE about cooking certain dishes is that you can tailor it to what you enjoy!  I love a lot of garlic and basil so I may put a little more than what someone else likes...that's just me!  Please mess around and tailor this dish to what you prefer.  I hope you try to make this and enjoy it!!

Chicken Pasta with Tomatoes, Feta, Basil and Garlic
Serves 2

Ingredients

- 2-3 boneless chicken breasts
- 3-4 medium sized tomatoes
- about 3 cloves of garlic- minced (I used some extra for some garlic bread)
- 6-7 basil leaves (depending on what you like)
- 1 tub of Feta Cheese
- about 4 tablespoons of butter
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 1/2 pack of pasta of your choice (I love fettuccine for this dish)

Directions for Cooking

1. Make sure chicken is thawed.  Place chicken in a skillet like dish with the butter cut into 1/2 inch chunks.  Place butter all around the chicken, put the lid on and cover on low for about 30-40 minutes.  Just watch the chicken and see if you need to turn up the heat, but you don't want the chicken to cook too quickly because it will be tough.  
2. While the chicken is cooking you can prepare all of the other ingredients.  Dice the tomatoes (I leave the seeds because it makes the sauce a little more juicy, but you can de-seed if you would like), mince the garlic, and chop basil.  
3. Once the chicken is cooked, wash that pot and place about two tablespoons (I do about two and a half swirls on the outer part of the pan) of olive oil and the garlic in the pan.  Let that cook for just a few minutes, do not overcook the garlic, and then place in the tomatoes and basil.  Stir and place the top back on while it cooks for about 5 minutes on medium heat.  
4. While the tomatoes and stuff is cooking you can dice the chicky and place that in the pan with the tomato mixture.  Let this cook for about 10 minutes just to let all the flavors meld together and get nice and juicy.  
5. While you are waiting for the chicken mixture to get ready you can cook the pasta.  I did not strain the pasta.  I just used tongs to move the pasta along with some pasta water into the tomato mixture.  I stirred it all together and added the feta cheese, stirred some more to mix everything together.

That's it!  Enjoy!  Here are some pictures of me cooking the stuff.  I will have to get better at that!  :)  Please let me know if you cook this dish and how you like it! 

 

 Yum!!

The next recipe I'm going to share with you is for a banana bread.  I have fixed this twice in the last two weeks, once just to try out (which it turned out amazing) and then again on Thursday for Rick when he got home from traveling all week!  I wanted Mom and Rick to be able to enjoy it over the weekend! :)

Banana Banana Bread

Ingredients
- 2 cups of all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon of salt
- 1/2 cup of butter
- 3/4 cups sugar (I used cane sugar)
- 2 eggs, beaten
- about 3-4 ripen (almost black) bananas

Directions for Cooking

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes.  

This is one of the best banana breads I have had.  This recipe does not have nuts in it, but anything can be added.  :)  Below is a pick of an already eaten B bread!

I hope you will enjoy these recipes and I look forward to sharing more with you within the next week!  :)  Have a great rest of the weekend and Monday! We are off to a Monavie meeting! Bye!