Everyone's Favorite Garlic Chicken

Do you have a recipe that you trot out time after time for company or special dinners? Something that’s easy, fast, yummy and preferably make ahead?   We almost always have a dish of this in the freezer in case visitors spring out of the bushes to surprise us before dinner.  

This is one of our go-to dishes and we realized we hadn’t shared it here. It’s time.

Garlic chicken

4 large chicken breasts, skin on and bone in.

1 container sour cream – we went for 14 %, but suit yourselves if you like lower fat ones.

2 slices of whole wheat bread
1 tsp Chicago streak spice (or your favorite)

2 cloves of garlic

Juice of a lemon

2 tsp Worchestershire sauce

S & P

Whirl the bread and the garlic in a food processor until 'crumbed'. 

Place in a shallow dish or plate

In another shallow dish, combine sour cream, lemon, Worchestershire sauce, S & P.

Dip chicken breasts, one at a time, in the sour cream mixture. Then dip in the bread crumbs and transfer to a baking sheet or dish.  

This would be a good time to mention that you can adjust the amounts of ‘dip’ and crumbs, up or down depending on the number of chicken breasts.

Sprinkle steak spice on top.  You can make this in the am and then keep it in the fridge until ready to bake.   Or as we said freeze it and cook from frozen when you need to. 

Bake at 350 for 50 minutes to an hour. Test with meat thermometer to make sure chicken is cooked. Try not to overcook.

This is good hot, cold or even warm.  It goes well with most veggies.  It reheats well and it seems to work well not matter what the season is.

It’s a consistent favorite and that’s why we wanted to share with you.  So, your place or ours?

Victoria Abbott is the mysterious collaboration between the artist and photographer Victoria Maffini and her mother, the mystery writer, Mary Jane Maffini.  That's us! Strangely enough, our book collector mysteries, The Christie Curse, The Sayers Swindle, The Wolfe Widow, .The Marsh Madness and The Hammett Hex all contain lots of food and tasty recipes.  

And MJ gets all huffy if her Canadian books don't get shown.  So here they are!

We know we said our last post was December 23rd but we couldn't resist one more visit, so we sneaked in with silly hats to wish you the best of 2018 a few days early and to share this recipe. We have kidnapped Linda and tied her up in the closet.  We'll let her out after the post.  You can see how much we will miss you! So don't be strangers!

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Find out more about us here!

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Hugs from us to all of you!

 

Merry Christmas!

Festive Shrimp and Salmon Pizza

Who wants pizza?

In many cultures, seafood is a special treat during the Christmas season. It's always a welcome treat at our table and so we were tickled to find this recipe.  It's festive, a bit different, special, yet suitable for a relaxed get together. What could be better when friends or family arrive for a meal during this time of year?   Everyone wants it, even some who are not actually supposed to eat it. Luckily, there are other treats for them.

This recipe is inspired by one in the 2018 Milk Calendar. The illustrated recipe calendar is an annual publication from the Dairy Farmers of Canada. I love the calendar, look forward to it every year and have many faves from it. Of course, I changed a few ingredients and directions to match with what I had on hand. 

Ingredients

2 sheets frozen puff pastry, thawed

1 pound frozen peeled shrimps, thawed and squeezed dry (don’t skip that step!)

4 tbsp  butter

1 clove garlic, minced

2 tbsp all-purpose flour

1 tsp thyme leaves

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup whole milk

6 ounces smoked salmon, thawed if frozen

1/2 red bell pepper

1 1/2 cups shredded Mozzarella

½ cup crumbled Feta

3 green onions, sliced (white and green)
chopped parsley (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 425°F. Unroll thawed pastry and place sheets side by side (overlapping slightly to form pizza crust) to fit on a large parchment-lined baking sheet. Press overlapped dough together so it sticks. 

Prick all over with a fork. Fold and press ½ inch of pastry all around outside edge to form a rim. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Squeeze out excess water from shrimp. Place in paper towel then gently squeeze again.  

Melt 2 tbsp butter in sauté pan and add green onions.  Cook for two minutes. Add shrimp and cook until just barely pink.  Cool. 

Melt another 2 tbsp butter in a medium pot over medium heat. Add garlic; cook 1 min. 

Sprinkle with flour, thyme and salt. Whisk until smooth.  Gradually whisk in milk. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, whisking for 2 min or until smooth and thickened. 

Turn into a bowl and refrigerate.

Slice salmon crosswise.

 Chop red pepper into ½-inch pieces. 

Remove pastry from fridge. Thinly spread with cooled milk sauce. Sprinkle with half the Mozzarella. Scatter with red pepper. Add shrimp, smoked salmon and remaining Mozzarella and all the Feta. Toss chopped parsley here and there.

Bake 18 min or until a deep golden brown.

 Let stand for 5 min before slicing. 

You can slice this into small squares for appetizers, but we enjoyed large squares for lunch.  There was none left over to get a picture of the small squares. Oops!   

We liked this enough that we plan to make it again soon.  It can be varied in many ways and it does help to deal with the puff pastry so many of us have taunting us from the freezer.

Now comes the tough part:  Most of you know that Victoria Abbott is a collaboration between Mary Jane Maffini and her writer and artist daughter, Victoria. We are both sad to say that this will be our final post as a regular here on Mystery Lovers Kitchen and we will miss you all.  We hope to be back as a guest in the future when there’s book (or food) news.  Victoria and I have loved our interactions and all your comments.  We’ve made great friends with our talented and kind-hearted fellow writers here in ‘the kitchen’ and with so many of you readers too.  We hope you’ll stay in touch with us on Facebook Mary Jane and, Victoria Abbott    AND if you haven’t already done it, that you’ll sign up for our newsletter HERE. Your name will be in the sign-up draw!

Don't forget to try our books!

Make sure you are here ‘in the kitchen’  in January when you’ll get to meet our newest colleague in our AROUND THE KITCHEN TABLE post. We snagged a terrific cozy writer for the team and you’ll be very happy with the BIG REVEAL.  

Until then, from us and our festive pets, put your feet up and have the best of holidays with wonderful food, family, friends and plenty of mysteries.   

Much love,  

Mary Jane and Victoria

Banana Blueberry Muffins #mystery #CapeBreton #recipe #giveaway

Psst!  Read right to the end to get the details of the giveaway. Just sayin'.

On our holiday in beautiful Cape Breton this October, we were lucky enough to enjoy breakfast at a fabulous B & B, Colby House in Sydney, shown here ready for the holidays.   We are looking forward to seeing them again next year!

   

One morning banana blueberry muffins were part of the delicious menu.  They were outstanding. We asked the B & B owner, Bev Gabriel, for the recipe and she disappeared and reappeared two minutes later with it hand-written on a recipe card. The recipe turned out to be easy as well as yummy.  I’m sharing it with you because it brings back memories of a wonderful stay, a great trip and because I suspect that you want something easy and delish to have ready at a moment’s notice during the busy lead up to the holidays.  Or maybe you just want a treat with bananas and blueberries.  Enjoy!


I was particularly happy when a child who claimed not to like bananas or blueberries decided that these muffins were delicious! Knew it. 

Banana blueberry muffins

 

 You will need: 

1 extra large egg, room temperature

¾ cup white sugar

¼ cup butter, softened

3 ripe bananas

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 ½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 ½ cups frozen wild blueberries (the small ones or they will turn everything blue)

Directions:

Mash bananas in a large bowl.

Add sugar and egg. 

Add butter and combine well. 

Combine dry ingredients and gently stir into mixture.   Don’t overbeat. 

Add blueberries quickly and with the minimum of stirring, so they don’t turn everything blue.  

 Although we had been warned, we couldn’t find the small small frozen blueberries and had a few extra blue streaks but the taste was great. 

Transfer to 12 well-greased muffin cups.

Bake at 375 convection for about 20 minutes (or until done).

Mmm. Delicious!  

You can enjoy them warm from the oven or freeze to enjoy later.  They freeze really well!  

Just put them in freezer bag and you're set.  So if you need a break during this hectic season, pop one in the microwave for a few seconds, just long enough to warm it.  Add a little sweet butter and enjoy with a cup of hot tea.  

 

 After all, don’t you deserve a moment to yourself? 

In case you don't know, Victoria Abbott is a collaboration between  me, Mary Jane Maffini, and my daughter Victoria. Together we write the book collector mysteries.   We think that reading them is like taking a lovely trip to a wonderful place where books are everything and, yes, murder happens and great meals are served and some relatives are not to be trusted. Of course, justice prevails in the end and books are loved.  And we do trust our own relatives!

We love your suggestions and comments. Come on by and tell us  about B & B's you love or your favorite muffins.  Don't let us be lonely.

The book collector mysteries are fun, easy to read and surprising too. All five titles are available in print, e-book and audio format. Don't miss out.  Watch out for the Siamese cats - one is good and one will get you!