I like my chicken on the French side and something "Tasty"

I know, I know... I was supposed to do this like three weeks ago and the guilt has been gnawing at me, but so has the procrastination, and now I am proud to report that I have overcome all of that, and now I am here for you. Actually, I'm watching Jimmy Kimmel, it's National Hugging Day, and this random girl from the audience is getting hugged very warmly while dancing to "Died in Your Arms" with Zac Efron and I'm mesmerized because damn he's hot. But enough of that! I do have to tell you that I am obsessed with sparkling ICE drinks. Have you seen these? Link: http://www.sparklingice.com/product/black-raspberry

They're pretty and the bottle's kind of inconvenient but soooo good.

Anyhoo - the chicken. I'd been seeing (on Facebook of course) this picture of insanely delicious-looking chicken. Chicken Francaise - looks very om nom nom, doesn't it?

This recipe comes to you courtesy of a site called Recipe30 and there's really a lot of nice-looking recipes on the page, but this one picture kept going past my face in my Facebook feed, looking all buttery and herb-y and all kinds of bad for you, and I was sold.

So first instruction is to butterfly the chicken breasts and then pound them flat. Now, when you do that, you can cook one breast at time in your pan, you just can't fit more, and what's the point really? I just slice them in half (parallel to the cutting board)all the way through and then pound them out (if you want - not totally necessary). You say to yourself "uhhhh... what's the difference?" I'm getting there. Next steps are something I use for chicken parm, egg plant, chicken fingers - dredge in flour, dip in egg wash, dredge in bread crumbs. Now, here's where you'll thank me: if you cut your chicken through instead of butterfly, you can then (either before or after pounding if you choose to) cut into a smaller piece, and what will that do for you? It will allow you to coat and cook the chicken in larger batches. I use a dinner plate for my flour and bread crumbs - instead of coating one butterflied piece of chicken at a time, you can do multiple and then cook multiple. One thing I highly recommend you do not do: dip in the flour and then put in the egg wash and let it sit there. It's ok if it sits in the flour, it's ok if it sits in the bread crumbs, but do not have the floured chicken sit in the egg - it just creates a gooey surface...yuck... Then do your frying as directed. For the sauce, I don't have alcohol in the house, so for white wine I usually just substitute chicken broth. Yes, it is not the same flavor, so just make sure your acidity is right - you can add some vinegar or lemon juice with the chicken stock, and this recipe already calls for lemon juice, so taste test if you're going to go the non-alcoholic route. I reduced the sauce but I wanted it to be a little more...ummm... silky? I don't know if that's the right word, but something a little more substantive, so I ended up adding more butter. What the hell, it's "French", right? Do Julia Child proud and add as much butter as humanly possible. I also did not have fresh parsley so I good bunch of dried will have to do. It was fine.

So here's my finished product (taken with my nifty new phone, with help from a child because I cannot hold it still):

The color's a little weird (and so is the angle) but I think that's not too shabby. And the chicken doesn't look half-bad either! The best part... children rated it a 10 out of 10 - woo hoo! It is really good. I served it with herb & butter egg noodles and some veg that I don't remember right now. I say - if you haven't already tried it - do.

Now for the Tasty: I actually did what I said I was going to and used a recipe from a Tasty video... Pull Apart Garlic Rolls


(recipe:
Ingredients:
1 tube refrigerated biscuits
3 Tbsp. butter, melted
1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 Tbsp. fresh parsley, minced
1 cup shredded mozzarella

Cut biscuits into fourths, and place in a large mixing bowl. Add the butter, garlic powder, parsley, and mozzarella, and mix with your hands, coating all of the biscuit pieces. Place the pieces in a muffin tin, 3 pieces per tin (you’ll have 2 extra—just use them in whichever tin you want). Bake for 15 minutes. Best served fresh out of the oven!)

So I looked in my fridge and said to myself - why not? I have all of these ingredients so let's go for it... So

Step 1 - open can of biscuits. I had Pillsbury Flaky Layers and that's fine

Step 2 - wave hands over biscuits to instantly transform into pieces. I actually had to manually quarter them. I used my favorite kitchen shears and cut them individually. They're sticky so after you cut them they immediately want to start sort of becoming a single biscuit again. It's kind of creepy actually, like amoebas joining to become some larger amoeba... uhuhuhuhh (shudder noise).

Step 3 - throw all the rest of the ingredients on top and mix it all up with your hands. Again, these biscuits want to stick to each other, and as soon as the ingredients hit, they pretty much want to stick just to the top biscuit pieces. As you mix them all around, it's not as easy to distribute as in the video. Believe it or not, it actually takes longer than 2 seconds, just try not to smash the pieces or you will have just dense biscuit pieces later.

Step 4 - put three pieces in each little cup of the muffin tin. Again, these things just want to keep forming back into a whole biscuit so it is actually hard to find those little individual quarters, and you may have to pull them apart. No biggie just do that and don't worry about it. Also, out of fear, I sprayed the pan with store-brand-equivalent-Pam, even though it's non-stick. I would definitely recommend doing that if your muffin tin is not non-stick because despite all the butter, they will absolutely be stuck to the pan because of the cheese, and this is not a paper-liner situation. And yes, you end up with a couple odd pieces left, I just added them to another biscuit grouping.

Step 5 - Bake aaaand done! Pop out and eat... I was worried that the center would not be fully cooked, but it was perfectly fine.

Kids loved it. My one recommendation - well two actually - I would add some fresh minced garlic. Not too much, but the garlic powder was not enough for me, and actually became kind of stuck to the first dough contact made. You could, I suppose, melt the butter, and the garlic powder to it and then dump it in and it might be better, but I just think it really needed a real garlic boost. You also don't need to use as much cheese if you don't want to. The only other thing I'd say is that biscuits are inherently sort-of sweet. A little sprinkling of salt or maybe even a touch of grated Parmesan on top will help with that if you find you don't care for that kind of flavor. And yeah, I didn't take a pic of mine, but they really did look like video. Success!

So two, count 'em two great recipes. They don't go together, i.e. don't serve the garlic rolls with the chicken - I didn't, those were two separate incidences- but definitely try them. So au revoir, ciao, bon appetit, mangia... go cook something.