Chicken Cutlets with Fettuccini Alfredo

Today was a rather productive day in our kitchen. I do not know what overcame me but I made Chicken Cutlets, Black Bean Soup, Sausage and Peppers, Ham and Rice Casserole, Baked Macaroni, Bacon and Onion Calzones, Sausage and Peppers Calzones, and Homemade Pasta. I can tell you that I am exhausted. But my Mom would have said it was a good tired because I did so much. And we have a lot of dinners in the freezer.

So what did I make for dinner?  Chicken Cutlets with Fettuccini Alfredo. I got home from church and the grocery store at 6PM. I put a pan of water on the stove for the pasta and popped the pre-cooked chicken cutlet in the oven for about 20 minutes at 375˚.

Dinner was on the table by 6:30. And it was perfect. The chicken was crispy and moist and the pasta, well there is nothing better than homemade pasta with butter and cheese.

The chicken cutlet recipe is from a video I watched a few years ago. My version of the recipe is at the bottom of this post.

The pasta is a recipe I have been using for years. Once you find a recipe that works for you everytime do not stray from it. The recipe is from Tides and Thyme. I made the full batch and divided it into 3 meal portions. My Mom would have said it was money in the bank!

The Pasta Recipe -  Click Here!

This is the Fettuccini recipe-

Ingredients-
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon pieces
Dried egg fettuccine
1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
Grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (1 cup) 

Method-
Melt butter in a large saute pan.

Cook fettuccine in a 6- to 8-quart pot of boiling salted water until al dente.

Reserve 1/2 cup pasta cooking water, then drain fettuccine in a colander.

Immediately toss the fettuccine with butter and salt in the sauté pan, then slowly add 3/4 cup cheese, tossing constantly and adding enough of the cooking water to keep the pasta moist.

Season with salt and pepper to taste, then sprinkle with remaining cheese.

The Chicken Cutlets

This is the recipe that changed the way I make Chicken Cutlets.

Frank Pinello's Nonna's Chicken Cutlet Recipe -

Here is the original video for the recipe - watch the video.

This is how I make the recipe. Only edit I made is not using the lemon juice.

• Mix eggs with Parmesan Cheese
  
  
• Mix bread crumbs, flour, pepper, Parmesan Cheese and parsley
  
  
• Coat baking pan with oil
  
  
• Toss chicken in a bowl with the egg/cheese
  
  
• Coat chicken with bread crumb mixture
  
  
• Place chicken in pan
  
  
• Drizzle oil on top
  
  
• Heat oven to 350 and then raise temp to 450.
  
  
• Place tray in middle of oven
  
  
• Flip cutlets when they look like they do in the video (!!!)

First Friday of Lent. A TikTok Sensation!

So we begin the Friday night dinners during Lent. Not someone's favorite time of the year but I am determined to kick it up a notch this Lent with dinner ideas.

We started off with that TikTok Sensation - Baked Feta Pasta With Tomatoes.

Insert crowd cheers.

Have you seen this video? As soon as I saw it I knew it would be a hit in our house.

It is so damn easy. One baking dish and one pot. Gotta love an easy clean-up on a Friday night.

This recipe is very adaptable to anyone's taste.  I read that you can use goat cheese instead of Feta. And the pasta can be whatever you like. It was recommended something like a bowtie pasta but I opted for homemade fettuccini. 

We loved this. Both of us went back for seconds. The sauce was so delicious. It is a good idea to save some of the pasta water in case the pasta looks like it could use more sauce once it is added to the baking dish.

Click here for the original recipe.

This was my version of the recipe tailored for our tastes.

Ingredients-
12 oz. pasta of your choice
1/2 cup olive oil 
1 box cherry tomatoes (around 10 oz) 
1 block feta about 8 oz
a few pinches of red pepper flakes
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
salt and pepper

Method-
Preheat oven to 400˚F. Then toss cherry tomatoes with olive oil, salt, and pepper in a baking dish.

Stick a block of feta in the middle and add another glug of olive oil along with a few more cranks of fresh pepper.

Bake for 35 minutes or until the feta is brown and the tomatoes have burst. Then stir to mix.

Boil water for the pasta, remember to add salt!

Cook the pasta, saving some of the water in case there is not enough liquid in the sauce.

Chop the basil. 

Remove the baking dish from the oven and add red pepper flakes and stir.

Stir in the cooked pasta.

Garnish with basil.

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection
or reload the browserDisable in this text fieldEditEdit in GingerEdit in Ginger× begin begin to speak or say More (Definitions, Synonyms, Translation)

Homemade Fettuccine with Vodka Sauce

Don't you hate when you go to make dinner and realize you forgot to get an ingredient? I do. I forgot the cream for the vodka sauce. But fear not, I opened the cabinet to find a jar of one of my favorite sauces - Paul Sorvino's Vodka Sauce. Excellent substitute for homemade.

The pasta recipe was from Giada De Laurentiis Every Day Pasta.

3 cups all purpose flour
4 large eggs
1 tbsp. salt
1 tbsp. olive oil

Place the flour in the bowl of a food processor. In a small bowl, lightly beat the eggs. Add the salt and olive oil to the eggs and stir to combine. Add the egg mixture to the food processor with the flour and pulse to combine the ingredients, scraping down the sides once or twice. Continue, with the machine running until the liquid is evenly distributed, about 1 minute. The dough should stick together if pinched between your fingers and be cornmeal yellow in color. Some of the dough will be clumping together, but it will not form a ball.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Gather the dough into a ball and knead gently until the dough is smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes before rolling and shaping as desired.

I cut the recipe in half and it was just enough for the 2 of us.

Dinner was so good. The pasta was perfect and the sauce was super easy and I can submit it to the I Heart Cooking Club for this week!