Holiday. Weekend Cooking, Skating,

Today is Family Day in Ontario. This is a relatively new holiday, first observed in 2008, and is not universal in Canada although most provinces have a statutory holiday in February. It does mean that our bowling alley will be swamped with families with parents and kids so they cancelled our League today. However, many of us are going to bowl tomorrow afternoon instead.

We had quite a lot of snow on Saturday night and Sunday morning. Luckily we haven’t had the snow which has hampered most of the States.

As you may have seen from the comments last week, I changed our planned menu for Valentine’s Day to decrease the calorie intake somewhat. We ended up having spaghetti with a shrimp in white wine and tomato sauce inspired by a recipe by Kevin’s Closet Cooking followed by the Chocolate Volcanoes. Saturday we had our fillet steaks which I served with a Balsamic sauce. Matt did not like the sauce, but I did. When we made the chocolate volcanoes we ended up with three egg whites. Saturday afternoon I turned them into meringues – I am not very good at meringues, but they turned out pretty well. It is one of my favourite things to eat, especially with cream. Cornish cream for preference of course. Sunday we had a favourite standby of Chicken Breasts with Lemon and Capers. Hadn’t had it in a while so it made a nice change.

Been watching a lot of the Olympics over the weekend too. Was so disappointed that Patrick Chan didn’t manage to win the gold especially as the Japanese skater, Yuzuru Hanyu, left the door wide open for him. However, everyone was falling and Patrick Chan was no exception. I though both the winning skate and Chan’s skate were rather boring and I much preferred that of the American skater Jason Brown. However, I am not the judge and I can’t tell one jump from another anyway. I never managed to stay upright on skates without hanging on to someone.

I have posted this recipe for Chicken with Lemon and Capers before, but I thought you might like to see it again as it was a long time ago and it is such an easy but tasty recipe.


Chicken Breasts with Lemon and Capers

1/4 cup Flour
1/4 tsp Black Pepper
1/2 tsp Paprika
2 Skinned, boned chicken breasts about 1 lb, halved and pounded to ¼  in thickness
5 tsp corn oil
1/4 cup chicken broth
2 Tbs lemon juice
2 Tbs Capers, drained

1. FLATTEN the chicken first by putting it between two sheets of Saran wrap and beating it with a mallet, using the side not the spiked part of said mallet.
2. Combine the flour, pepper and paprika on a plate. Press the chicken breasts  into the mixture, coating them evenly all over and shaking off any excess.
3. In a heavy 10 in skillet, heat the corn oil over mod high heat for 1 mins. Add the breasts and cook about 3 mins on each side, do not overcook. Transfer the breast to a heated platter.
4. Add the chicken broth to the skillet scraping up any browned bits on the bottom. Stir in the lemon juice and capers and heat through. Pour the sauce over the breasts and serve.

Have a great day