Whole Wheat Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Don’t let the name fool you, gang. These cookies are awesome. They are probably in the top three best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made. They are chewy and tender and delicious. They have a slightly caramel flavor to them – they’re like florentines and chocolate chip cookies got together and had the most delicious love child ever.

I stumbled upon this recipe a week or so ago, starred and long forgotten in my Google Reader, languishing for over a year in the chaotic wasteland of the hundreds and hundreds of recipes that I want to try someday. FOR A YEAR. I’m glad I rediscovered these babies, because they’re fabulous – and since they’re made with whole wheat and rolled oats, they’re actually GOOD FOR YOU.

Sort of.

If you don’t think about all the butter and sugar – they’re practically health food.  Amazing, delicious, chewy, chocolatey health food.

…Or maybe just the best dang oatmeal chocolate chip cookies ever.

Like Maria of Two Peas and Their Pod, who originally posted this recipe, I decided to see if my husband could guess that whole wheat flour was the secret ingredient. And like Maria’s husband, James couldn’t do it. First he guessed walnuts, and then he guessed toffee before giving up. Also like Maria’s husband, James was totally surprised when I told him they were made with 100% whole wheat flour – not a speck of all purpose in the whole batch. They don’t taste dense or dry or “wholesome” like you’d expect whole wheat cookies to taste – they’re so good, I don’t think anyone would guess that they’re whole wheat.

So please, don’t be like me and wait a year to bring this amazingness into your life. Make them. Make them now. What are you waiting for? Go!

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

From Two Peas and Their Pod

1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour (I used white whole wheat)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 egg, at room temperature

1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 tablespoon milk (I used 1%)

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup semisweet chocolate morsels

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
2. Using a mixer, cream the sugars with the softened butter for about two minutes. Add in the egg, vanilla, and milk. Mix until smooth.
3. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, with the mixer on low. Mix just until flour disappears. Don’t over mix. Stir in the oats and chocolate chips by hand.
4. Form rounded cookie dough balls, using about 1 T of dough. Place dough balls on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a Silpat. Bake cookies for 11-12 minutes or until lightly golden around the edges. Let cookies sit on the cookie sheet for a couple of minutes to set up. Then move to a cooking rack. Makes around 2 dozen cookies.

Grilled Fish Tacos

One of the great things about living in Southern California wasn’t just the delicious authentic Mexican food, it was the cheap delicious authentic Mexican food. Here in Massachusetts, we get to pay double for mediocre, non-authentic Mexican food.

Or, I could just learn how to make it at home!

Over the past two years, I’ve developed a modest arsenal of authentic Mexican recipes, including Pioneer Woman’s salsa. I’d never made fish tacos though. I don’t cook much with fish. I used to not like seafood much, but even now that I’ve grown out of my fish-aversion, I still don’t really think about it as a meal option. But when Michelle at Brown Eyed Baker raved about the fish taco recipe she snagged from Martha Stewart’s new Power Foods cookbook, I knew I had to try it. And I can say with confidence that fish will be making a more regular appearance on our dinner table now, because these fish tacos were awesome.

The recipe calls for skin-on striped bass or red snapper, but my grocery store didn’t carry either of those, so I used skinless tilapia, which worked out just fine. The recipe comes together fairly quickly, although there is half an hour to two hours of marinating time, which needs to be factored in. You rub the fish with a mixture of chili powder, oregano, salt, pepper, freshly minced cilantro and olive oil, and let it rest in the fridge while you prepare the accompaniments – lightly salt some shredded cabbage and set aside, and make a batch of pickled veggies. I wasn’t too sure about the pickles but they added a nice touch to the tacos.

These tacos are delicious and authentic. The fish is very flavorful, and when piled high with shredded cabbage, pickles, sour cream, and cilantro, the tacos are pretty irresistible. I definitely recommend using hot sauce, because the tacos won’t be spicy without it, and I thought they really came alive with a sprinkling of Tabasco.

Grilled Fish Tacos

Slightly adapted from Martha Stewart’s Power Foods, via Brown Eyed Baker

Yield: Makes 12 tacos*

Prep: 20 minutes Inactive prep: 30 minutes to 2 hours Cook time: 8 to 12 minutes

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 tablespoon chili powder

Coarse salt

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro, plus extra leaves for garnish

2 pounds skin-on** stripped bass or red snapper fillets, or skinless tilapia fillets

5 cups shredded cabbage (1/2 head)

Neutral-tasting oil, such as canola or safflower, for grill

Corn tortillas

Lime wedges, avocado, sour cream, and hot sauce, for serving

Quick pickled vegetables, optional (recipe follows)

1. Stir together cumin, oregano, chili powder, and 2 teaspoons salt. Mix in the olive oil and cilantro.
2. Use a sharp knife to make shallow slits about 1 1/2 inches apart into the fish skin (or the fish flesh, if skinless); rub both sides with spice mixture and set the filets in a large dish. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes to 2 hours.
3. Toss together cabbage and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt in a medium bowl. Let sit for 30 minutes.
4. Prepare pickled vegetables, if using.
5. Heat grill or grill pan to high (if using charcoal grill, coals are ready when you can hold your hand 5 inches above grill for just 2 to 3 seconds. Lightly oil grates or pan. (If using a grill pan indoors, be sure to turn on your stove’s ventilation fan – and possibly disable your smoke detector temporarily – because the fish will smoke quite a bit.)
6. Place fish, skin side up, on grill. Cook, without moving fish, until opaque throughout, 3 to 5 minutes. Carefully flip, using two spatulas if necessary. Cook until fish flakes slightly when pressed in the center, 5 to 7 minutes more. (I found that my fish only needed a 3-4 minutes on each side.)
7. Transfer fish to a serving platter; let cool slightly, then shred with a fork into bite-size pieces. Garnish platter with lime wedges and cilantro sprigs. Serve warm or at room temperature (within 1 hour). Allow guests to assemble their own tacos, layering fish with cabbage, avocado, sour cream, hot sauce, pickled vegetables, and other toppings, as desired.

Note: We fried our corn tortillas in canola oil, which isn’t exactly the authentic way to serve fish tacos, but we prefer them fried. If you want to have them fried, pour about a 1/4 inch of oil into a small frying pan and heat it up until a drop of water sizzles when dropped in (watch out for splattering oil), or when you dip an edge of a tortilla into the oil and the oil immediately starts boiling around it. Prick the tortillas in the middle with a fork to prevent them from puffing up, and fry quickly in the oil, keeping the tortilla submerged with tongs – it’ll take less than a minute.

Quick picked vegetables

I only had 1 jalapeno, so I quartered this recipe. I’ve included the quartered amounts in parenthesis, in case you don’t want to make a quart of pickles. A quarter recipe will yield 1 cup.

Yield: 1 quart

Prep time: 20 minutes

2 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar (5 oz)

1/3 cup  granulated sugar (1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon)

2 teaspoons coarse salt (1/2 teaspoon)

3 cups cold water (3/4 cup)

4 carrots, peeled and diagonally sliced 3/4 inch thick (1 carrot)

2 small red onions, halved and sliced into 3/4 inch wedges (1/2 of a red onion)

4 jalapeno chiles, quartered lengthwise, ribs and seeds removed (1 jalapeno)

Combine vinegar, sugar, water, and salt in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil over high heat and stir to dissolve sugar. Add carrots, onion and jalapeno, and reduce heat to medium-high. Simmer until carrots are just tender, 10 to 12 minutes. Pour into a bowl and let cool before covering and refrigerating. (Pickles will keep up to 2 weeks.)

*We made 4 tacos last night and it seemed like we barely made a dent in the pile of fish. This yield depends on how much fish you stuff into one taco, but I bet we’ll get more than 12 tacos out of it.

** I question the need for the skin. I didn’t have any trouble flipping the skinless tilapia fillets, and the only reason I can think of to keep the skin on is to hold the fish together. I’m not sure if the bass or snapper would behave as nicely if they were skinless, but I have a feeling that if all you can find is skinless fish, you don’t need to sweat it.

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

My parents came for a visit a couple weeks ago, and I wanted to bake a traditional layer cake for them. I decided I didn’t want to do chocolate or a plain white or yellow cake – too overdone, too boring, too much like birthday cake. I remembered that I had made perfect little carrot cupcakes in the summer and that I had been really impressed with how good that recipe was, so I wanted to make it in cake form. Luckily the recipe for the cupcakes is from Cook’s Illustrated, and the same recipe – adapted  for a layer cake –  was in my America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. Yippee!

This cake is moist and flavorful and really, it’s just carrot cake perfection. I love that it doesn’t include any carrot cake oddities like raisins or crushed pineapple. It’s a simple, straightforward cake that is the perfect way to welcome spring. And it’s an easy recipe – the cookbook notes that it’s “great for beginners” but it’s still a recipe that will impress company.

Pro tip: America’s Test Kitchen recommends that you use the grater attachment in your food processor to grate the carrots. I agree! A pound of carrots would take a lot of time and effort to grate up by hand, and the food processor will buzz through them in no time. Plus, it’ll save you from the fear that you will end up grating your fingertips or knuckles on your box grater. Or is that just me?

Carrot Layer Cake

From America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book

Serves 8 to 10

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

4 large eggs, room temperature

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil

1 pound (5 medium) carrots, peeled and grated

1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans, then line the bottoms with parchment paper. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices together in a medium bowl.
2. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and sugars together by hand until the sugards are mostly dissolved and the mixture is frothy. Continue whisking while slowly drizzling in the oil, until thoroughly combined and emulsified. Whisk in the flour mixture until just incorporated, then stir in the carrots.
3. Give the batter a final stir with a rubber spatula to make sure it is thoroughly combined. Pour the battering the prepared pans, smooth the tops, and gently tap the pans on the counter to settle the batter. Bake the cakes about 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cakes comes out clean, rotating the pans halfway though baking.
4. Let the cakes cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then turn them out onto wire racks to cool completely before frosting, about 2 hours.

Cream cheese frosting

8 oz cream cheese, softened

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 – 6 cups powdered sugar

2 tablespoons milk

Whip the cream cheese and the butter together in a large bowl with an electric mixer. Add the vanilla then 4 cups of sugar, one cup at a time. Add more sugar if necessary, to achieve the flavor and texture you like (I generally like to add more sugar so the frosting is less buttery). Use splashes of milk to loosen the frosting as necessary, adding only a teaspoon or so at time.

 

Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes

I’m trying to add more whole grains into our diet. James and I generally eat well, we eat a lot of whole foods and keep processed foods to a minimum. But I realized recently that while we get about our recommended amount of fruits and vegetables and definitely get enough dairy (we’re big milk drinkers), we weren’t coming close to the daily recommended amount of whole grain. So we’ve switched from regular “whole grain” cold cereal to Bob’s Red Mill whole grain hot cereals, which consist of ground up whole grains… and that’s it. No white flour, no sugar, no preservatives. I’m trying to have more whole grains as sides at dinner, like brown rice and quinoa.  Now that I’m not working, I’m baking 100% whole wheat bread from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day, which we use for sandwiches rather than store-bought bread.

And I’m sneaking whole wheat flour into more and more of our baked goods. I recently found white whole wheat flour in our grocery store and I’m in love. It has a more subtle flavor that regular whole wheat, and you really can’t detect it when you sub out half of the AP flour in a recipe for white whole wheat. So when I made these pancakes this morning, I used 1 cup white whole wheat and 1 cup AP flour, and they came out light and fluffy and delicious and James was surprised when I told him they were half whole wheat.

This weekend is the New Hampshire maple producers open house weekend, so James and I drove up yesterday to visit two sugar houses to see how they make maple syrup and to sample maple products. We first stopped at the Maple Butternut Farm in New Boston, and then we went to the Grant Family Pond View Maples in Weare.

Both are family-run operations – I suspect most if not all of the sugar houses in NH are family owned and operated. We drank little shots of pure maple syrup at both houses, and at the second one we also had maple hot dogs (cooked in maple water), maple chili, maple popcorn, and maple cotton candy. Yum yum!!

It was awesome to taste all that maple-y goodness and really interesting to meet the people to make the syrup and learn about how they do it. Of course we came home with a fair amount of maple products: A pint of maple syrup from each of the sugar houses, maple cream, maple butter, and maple sugar.

So of course this morning I had  a big craving for pancakes! These babies hit the spot. Light and fluffy with a nice tang of buttermilk, and heartier than normal pancakes thanks to the whole wheat. Delicious! Especially topped with super yummy New Hampshire maple syrup.

Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes

Adapted from Cook’s Illustrated Family Baking Book

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup white whole wheat flour

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups buttermilk

3 tablespoons melted unsalted butter

1 large egg

extra unsalted butter for the pan

1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 200 degrees. Set a wire rack over a baking sheet and set on the oven rack.
2. Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. In a 4-cup measuring cup, measure out buttermilk and then add melted butter and egg (you can use a medium bowl for this, but using a 4 cup measure saves you from having to wash an extra bowl while giving you room to whisk). Whisk wet ingredients together and add them to the dry. Gently fold the wet and dry ingredients together until just incorporated, with a few lumps remaining. Do not over mix. The batter will be very thick.
3. Heat a skillet or griddle pan over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes. Test with a few drops of water sprinkled on the surface – the pan is ready when the water immediately dances across the surface. Brush the pan with some butter. Using a 1/4 cup measure, scoop the batter onto the skillet and cook until large bubbles begin to appear, about 2 minutes.
4. Flip the pancakes and continue to cook until golden brown, about 1 1/2  minutes. Transfer pancakes to wire rack in the oven to keep warm. Repeat with remaining batter, brushing the pan with butter as needed. Serve with maple syrup!

Irish Soda Bread

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I wasn’t planning on making anything special for today, since my husband’s birthday was the day before yesterday so we have plenty of cake and dinner leftovers. But then I remembered my friend K sent me this recipe last year and I still hadn’t tried it and I love Irish soda bread but hardly ever have it. Plus, this recipe comes from K’s Northern Irish friend’s mother. An authentic, straight-from-Ireland recipe? Sold!

This is a quick bread, so it came together… quickly. Whisk together dry ingredients, add raisins, mix together wet ingredients, add those to the dry, plop it in a loaf pan, scoot it into the oven, and you’re done. Most Irish soda breads I’ve seen are round, not loaf-shaped, but I’m sure you could make this in a round cake pan, you’d probably just have to adjust the baking time.

This is a delicious bread! Soft, almost spongy in texture (in a good way!), moist and slightly sweet. I imagine there are about as many Irish soda bread recipes out there as there are Irish families. I’m used to a drier, more crumbly kind of soda bread. I like both kinds, actually. The recipe calls for 3 cups of all-purpose flour but I used 2 cups AP and 1 cup of white whole wheat flour – I don’t think you can detect that there’s whole wheat in it.

Irish Soda Bread

3 cups all-purpose flour (or 2 cups AP and 1 cup white whole wheat)

2/3 cup of sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 ¼ cups golden raisins (half a box) or regular raisins if you prefer

2 large eggs

2 cups of buttermilk (not too fresh, it gets better as it approaches the expiration date)

2 tablespoons of butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a large loaf pan (mine is about 10 x 5 and fit perfectly).
2. Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a large mixing bowl. Add the raisins and mix well. Combine the buttermilk, eggs and melted butter in a small bowl – mix well with the whisk.
3. Add the buttermilk mixture to the dry ingredients and mix with a spatula until just moistened. DO NOT OVERMIX – it will not taste as good and lose its texture.
4. Dump into prepared pan and bake for about an hour. (Mine took 55 minutes.) Test for doneness with a toothpick. Remove from pan and cool on rack.

Serve warm or cold with some good butter.

 

Nutty Honey Granola with Golden Raisins

I’ve proclaimed myself as a lover of homemade granola around these parts before, so I’ll keep this brief. I love granola. My dad has been baking up the same homemade granola recipe for as long as I can remember, but I like to mix things up and try different recipes and combinations of fruits and nuts.

This recipe comes from Martha Stewart, but she calls it honey-pecan granola. Well, I didn’t have any pecans (I’m not  big fan) and I like my granola to include at least a little fruit, so this is my riff on her recipe.  This is more delicately flavored than my maple granola recipe, and I kept it simple with limiting my fruits to coconut and golden raisins. It’s yummy with milk or sprinkled on top of yogurt. Feel free to adjust the fruits and nuts in this recipe to suit your taste!

Nutty Honey Granola with Golden Raisins

Adapted from Martha Stewart

3 cups old fashioned rolled oats

1 1/2 cups roughly chopped nuts ( I used a combination of walnuts, almonds, and cashews)

1/4 cup flax seed meal (optional)

1/4 cup wheat bran (optional)

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1/3 cup honey (I prefer clover, Martha recommends something stronger-tasting like orange blossom)

1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut

1/2 cup golden raisins

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients except for the raisins and mix well. Spread granola onto baking sheet in an even layer. Bake until oats and coconut are lightly golden, about 30 minutes, stirring halfway through. Let cool completely on sheet and then mix in the raisins. Store in an airtight container at room temperature up to 3 weeks.

Chocolate Whoopie Pies

My brother gave me Baked Explorations this past Christmas. What a gorgeous book! The photos are luscious. There are a lot of great-looking recipes in there. When my brother came for a visit recently, I was happy to have an excuse to make something out of the book for him.

Whoopie pies are all the rage lately in the food blogosphere, but I never made them because every recipe I come across makes a ton! This recipe from Baked Explorations claims to yield 10 to 12 large or 15 to 17 small pies, but I feel like it made much more than that. Happily, though, the whoopie pies freeze well. However, I won’t be making these again unless it’s for a big party – there was an overwhelming amount of dessert in the house for just three people that weekend. (Also, I don’t repeat recipes that much.)

I like that this recipe uses butter and canola oil rather than shortening, which I’ve heard is more traditional. I had never made swiss buttercream before but it was really rather easy and I really liked the results. They pies are very chocolatey and very slightly salty, which I enjoyed against the buttercream. But the buttercream isn’t bracingly sweet either. There’s a good balance of not-too-sweet and very slightly salty going on here. I did have a problem with the pies being so tender and moist that they fused to whatever surface I was storing them on (including each other), so that the bottoms always ripped off a bit whenever I moved them. But that just meant more tastes for me because I couldn’t let that little bit of chocolatey goodness go to waste. 🙂

Chocolate Whoopie Pies

Adapted slightly from Baked Explorations

Yield: A whole lot of whoopie pies

For the whoopie pies:

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup Dutch process cocoa powder

2 teaspoons instant espresso powder (I used one packet of Starbucks Via)

1/2 cup hot coffee

2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar

3/4 cup canola oil

1 large egg, room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup buttermilk, shaken (I used powdered buttermilk)

For the Swiss meringue buttercream:

3 large egg whites

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, cool but not cold, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

To make the pies:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silpats.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together cocoa powder and espresso powder. Add the hot coffee and 1/2 cup hot water and whisk until both powders are completely dissolved.

In a medium bowl, stir the brown sugar and oil together. Add this to the cocoa mixture and whisk until combined. Add the egg, vanilla, and buttermilk and whisk until smooth. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Make sure to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as you fold.

Use a small cookie scoop with a release mechanism to drop heaping tablespoons of dough onto the prepared baking sheets about 1 inch apart. Bake pans one at a time for 10-12 minutes, until the cookies are just starting to crack on top and a toothpick inserted into the center of a cookie comes out clean. Let the cookies cool completely on the pans.

To make the Swiss meringue:

In a medium metal bowl, whisk egg whites and sugar together. Set the bowl over a pan but do not let the water touch the bottom of the bowl. Heat the mixture until the sugar is completely dissolved and the color is a milky white, about 2-3 minutes. I gently whisked it during the heating process, it seems odd that the recipe doesn’t explicitly tell you whether to whisk it or not, but it seems that if you want it to heat evenly and for the sugar to dissolve quickly, whisking would be desirable.

Transfer the egg mixture to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and beat on medium-high (start slowly at first) until smooth and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Switch to the paddle attachment and add the cubed butter; beat on medium-high speed (start slowly at first) until smooth and fluffy, about 5 minutes. If the butter mixture looks like it is breaking, don’t worry, it will eventually come together (mine did, I couldn’t help but worry a bit, but sure enough it came together perfectly in the end).

Add the salt and vanilla and beat for 5 seconds to combine.

To assemble the whoopie pies:

Turn half of the cooled cookies over so that the flat side faces up. Use your cookie scoop or a tablespoon to drop a large dollop of buttercream onto the cookie and spread with a knife. (The original recipe says to put a dollop in the center of a cookie and then press another cookie onto it to spread the filling out – I didn’t think that worked too well.) Top with a second cookie. Repeat until all the cookies are used. Put the whoopie pies in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes to firm up before serving.

The whoopie pies will keep for up to 3 days (I definitely noticed a staleness creeping in when we got to day 3 1/2), on a parchment-lined baking sheet covered with plastic wrap, in the refrigerator. Bring the pies up to room temperature before serving.

Parmesan-stuffed Chicken Breasts

I recently discovered the wonder that is bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts. I never used to cook with them because the boneless, skinless variety is easier and I guess marginally healthier for you. Now I’m cooking with them all the time because cooking the chicken on the bone results in a moister, more flavorful meat. And I’d argue that if you don’t actually eat the skin, the chicken on the bone isn’t much different in terms of fat and calories than the boneless variety.

Plus, the bone-in variety is cheaper than boneless chicken breasts, so what’s not to love?

This recipe comes from Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food, and like every recipe I’ve ever tried from that magazine, it’s a good one. The magicians chefs at Everyday Food always surprise me with the deliciousness they can whip up with so few ingredients. This is one of those “that’s all there is??” recipes: breadcrumbs + parmesan cheese + fresh parsley + lemon = magic. This is an extremely tasty and simple way to have chicken – so simple that if you make it a few times you probably wouldn’t even need to look at the recipe again – but it’s nice enough to serve to company.

Parmesan-stuffed Chicken Breasts

From Everyday Food

Serves 4 (if you can tell by my photos, the breasts I used were massive and James and I split them to get 8 servings)

1 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped

1/4 cup plain dried bread crumbs

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese (use fresh for best results!)

Grated zest of 1 lemon (about 1 tablespoon)

Coarse salt and ground pepper

4 bone-in chicken breast halves (about 3 lbs)

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a small bowl, mix parsley, breadcrumbs, Parmesan, and zest. Season with 1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper.
2. Divide parsley mixture into 4 mounds. Carefully loosen chicken skin with fingers; tuck parsley mixture under skin. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Place in a 9×13-inch roasting pan.
3. Bake until skin is crispy, chicken is cooked through, and an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the meat registers 165 degrees, about 30 minutes.