Bruschetta and Saltimbocca

Last night was all about Italian food! I went to my friend Amanda's house, and made her family some Bruschetta with feta and a balsamic reduction, similar to what my husband and I had at the Mellow Mushroom on one of our date nights. Sadly our local grocery store had every fresh herb except Basil, so it wasn't quite as great as I was hoping, but everyone still loved it, so if you'd rather not go through the trouble and expense of fresh herbs it will still taste alright with dried :) After that we had Chicken Saltimbocca. Saltimbocca is italian for "Jumps in your mouth" and is typically veal or chicken topped with prosciutto (a sort of thin bacon, normally found near the imported cheeses in the grocery store) and seared. Ours was also topped with some spinach and parmesan cheese as well. Everyone liked that as well, even though two at the table are not fans of spinach normally. Since, in my mind an Italian meal would not be complete without some sort of pasta, I also made a creamy sun dried tomato pesto pasta, which did not turn out quite how I would have liked, but was still a nice accompaniment to the meal. All together it was a very enjoyable meal, and the planning for it definitely helped keep my mind off of my husband being gone. Hopefully it will continue to do that for the next 8.75 months!



Bruschetta

Ingredients

• 8 roma (plum) tomatoes, diced
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh basil
•  3 cloves garlic, minced (Personally we are big fans of garlic and this was not quite enough for us, next time I would add more, but if you are not a fan of garlic, feel free to put even less in)
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 loaf French bread, toasted and sliced (Normally the thinner the better, I prefer the thinner styled ones but our silly small town grocery store only had the big fat ones. If you can't get a thinner loaf, cut the slices in half so they're easier to manage)
• Balsamic vinegar to taste
• Feta to taste

 Mix together everything but the bread, vinegar and feta in one bowl and set to the side. Pour the balsamic vinegar in a small saucepan. Use as much vinegar as you want, personally I am a big fan of it, but it can be very strong. Put twice as much as you think you might want in, and boil on medium until it has reduced by about half and is the consistency of a syrup. Ours took about 10-15 minutes for that. Once that's done, you can either put everything on a platter separate and let people pile the bread up as they'd like, or you can put it together like I did, and pile the tomatoes on the slices of bread, drizzle with the balsamic and crumble the feta on top. Personally I prefer to do the latter juts because it is so pretty, but it is up to you :) I really enjoy this as an appetizer cause it requires little cooking, and most things can be done ahead of time, so it's relatively easy to throw everything together right as everyone arrives.



Chicken Saltimbocca
 

Ingredients

• 6 (3-ounce) chicken cutlets, pounded to evenly flatten (If you can't find chicken cutlets, or if they're too expensive, you can just buy chicken breasts, and butterfly them, but cut all the way through, so you have two piece about the same size as the original piece, but half as thick)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 6 paper-thin slices prosciutto
• 1 (10-ounce) box frozen chopped spinach, thawed
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan
• 1 (14-ounce) can low-salt chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Place the chicken cutlets flat on the work surface. Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper. Lay 1 slice of prosciutto atop each chicken cutlet.

Squeeze the frozen spinach to remove the excess water. Season the spinach with salt and pepper. In a small bowl, toss the spinach with 1 tablespoon of oil to coat.
Arrange an even, thin layer of spinach atop the prosciutto slices. Sprinkle the Parmesan evenly over each. Beginning at the short tapered end, roll up each chicken cutlet as for a jellyroll. Secure with a toothpick.
Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil in a heavy large skillet over high heat. Add the chicken and cook just until golden brown, about 2 minutes per side. Add the chicken broth and lemon juice, and scrape the browned bits off the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Bring the liquid to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium. Cover and simmer until the chicken is just cooked through, about 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a platter. Simmer the cooking liquid over high heat until it is reduced to about 2/3 cup, about 5 minutes. Season the cooking liquid with salt and pepper, to taste. Remove toothpicks from the chicken. Drizzle the reduced cooking liquid over the chicken and serve immediately. I really enjoyed the cooking liquid on this recipe, the whole thing was very good, but the flavor that the liquid had, with the little bit of bite from the lemon juice was delicious.

Sun-dried tomato Pesto Pasta
I don't have a picture of the recipe, because I was not really a fan of how it turned out, but in case anyone else would like to experiment, here are some quick instructions on how I did it.

Ingredients

• 1 cup of pesto (I did this with sun dried tomato, but you could use basil instead if you prefer)
• 1/4 cup of heavy cream
• 1 lb of your favorite pasta, cooked
• 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and Pepper to taste

 Heat olive oil over medium heat. Add pesto and stir into the oil, continuing to stir as the pesto heats up. Once it starts to get a little bubbly, add the cream slowly as you stir. You can even add more cream, or some of the pasta water if you would prefer. Turn the heat to low and stir in the pasta, making sure to get as much covered with the sauce as you can. I used bowtie pasta just because I love how it looks, but you can use whatever you'd like. Salt and pepper to taste and serve!

That's it for this week! If you have any suggestions, questions, or would like to share your pictures if you make any of these, please feel free to leave them in the comments below. :) See you next week!