Trip to Italy

For this month's travels, we went to Rome, Italy!! We dined on some very authentic pasta (me copying the recipe from the super Italian restaurant The Cheesecake Factory haha). Again, forgot to take pictures (which is too bad cuz I even plated them really well), but here's the recipe!

Louisiana Chicken Pasta

First, CHICKEN

Ingredients:

• 4 tablespoons vegetable oil

• 6 skinless boneless chicken breast halves

• 3/4 cup bread crumbs

• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

• 1 cup milk

• 2 tablespoons flour

Directions:

1. Wash and drain chicken breasts. Pound until very thin, as thin or thinner then 1/4-inch thick (the thinner the chicken breasts the better).

1. Mix breadcrumbs, flour, and Parmesan cheese together. Place milk in dish for dipping.

1. Dip chicken in breadcrumb mixture and then in milk and then back in breadcrumbs.

1. Place in fry pan that the oil has been heated and fry at medium high temperature until golden, crisp, and cooked through. Add more oil as needed. Remove and drain chicken. Keep warm.

Second, SAUCE

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon butter

• 1 small yellow bell pepper, chopped

• 1 small red bell pepper, chopped

• 3/4 small red onion, chopped

• 3 whole garlic cloves, minced

• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper

• 1 1/4 pints whipping cream

• 1 cup low-salt chicken broth

• 4 tablespoons fresh basil, thinly sliced

• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

• 1 package bow-tie pasta

• 1 cup mushrooms, sliced

• salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Melt butter in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add yellow and red bell peppers, mushrooms, and onion to same skillet and saute until crisp-tender, about 4 minutes.

1. Add minced garlic and crushed red pepper to skillet and saute 2 or 3 minutes.

1. Add whipping cream and chicken stock. Simmer until sauce re-heats and thickens slightly, about 5 minutes.

1. Add basil and 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese to sauce, stirring to incorporate. Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper. Reduce heat to low, simmer. Sauce will reduce and thicken.

1. Meanwhile, cook bow-tie pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to bite. Drain and return to pot. Add sauce and toss to coat.

1. Place pasta with sauce on plate, and top with chicken breast. Serve, passing additional Parmesan separately.

After our meal, we watched Roman Holiday! Neither of us had seen it before, but it's Audrey Hepburn, so we knew it'd be good :)

15 Days 'til Christmas

Well, with 15 days til Christmas, I thought I'd post some pictures of the Christmas decorations we put up with Tommy's sisters the day after Thanksgiving...

We can't wait for Christmas to come even though we still aren't sure if Tommy will have to work on Christmas day or not and haven't made any Christmas plans...but we are super grateful he has a job that he may be working on Christmas day and we're enjoying the wonderful Christmas season while it's here :)

Cooking Up Some Pie

So, for Thanksgiving this year, I was in charge of pie and I maybe went a little overboard...I made 3 pumpkin pies, 2 strawberry cream pies, 1 apple pie, and 1 caramel apple pie. They were all a pretty big hit, so I was happy with my work. Especially since I've never made apple pie before (but it's Tommy's favorite, so I had to). This is the second year in a row that I've made the pumpkin pie with a pecan crust and I'm a big fan, so I thought I'd share the recipe...

Pecan Pie Crust

Ingredients

1 cup pecans
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 1.4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 stick cold, unsalted butter cut into bits
1/2 tsp. salt
raw rice for weighting the shell

Instructions

1. In food processor, coarsely grind pecans with sugar; transfer to a bowl. In food processor, blend together flour, butter, and salt until coarse like meal; add to pecan mixture.
2. Add 3 tablespoons ice water, toss until mixed and press dough onto bottom and up the side of a 9-inch pie plate. Crimp edge; prick with fork and chill 30 minutes.
3. Line crust with foil, fill foil with rice, and bake in preheated 425 degree oven for 7 minutes. Remove rice and foil carefully and bake crust 5 more minutes; cool.

And here are some pie pictures for you to enjoy...though I did forget to take pictures of my last 3 pies.

Showering Baby

Baby McLaughlin is feeling very blessed this week with lots of presents and love rolling in. As you know, I stink at taking pictures and have none to offer of the baby shower, but I have had a few requests for pictures of the sweet presents we got, so...your wish is my command:
Here's a shot of the way cute quilt that Aunt Cheryl made for us. I absolutely LOVE it, we show it off to everyone that comes over. Also, you can see in the corner our fancy diaper genie that Ryan and Jenny got for us:

Here we have some stinkin' cute burp rags that Cheri got embroidered for us with cute Harry Potter themes:

Great-Grandma McLaughlin got us a car seat that we absolutely love and we topped it this week with the cutest cars eat cover ever made (courtesy of Aunt Mae):

Aunt Mae also sent us these booties...maybe I'm over using the words "cute" and "love," but are these not the cutest booties you've ever seen? Everyone freaks out over how cute they are every time I show them off:

At the baby shower, everyone helped us build up Oliver's book collection. Look at how well-read he's going to be! haha

On an unrelated note..since most of our nursery crafts are over, we've moved on to some Christmas crafts...this week I worked on making a wreath for our front door and an advent calendar for counting down the days until Christmas (though we aren't putting any of them up until Friday so we can give Thanksgiving its proper celebration).