Recipe/Tutorial: Chicken Parmesan Bake (No breading or deep frying)

Hi everyone! Yeah.. it's kind of been months since my last post... I came home from NY to LA and trying to straighten my life out. I get into my dream school, only to realize I can't afford it. I would have never believed money would be the reason to put my dreams at a halt. I was blessed since I was young and my family has always been financially stable, up until about 2 years ago. My father got laid off from work, and everything went downhill from there. Even the ridiculously large mansion sized home we had invested in ended up in nothing, because the of the house market crash here in southern California.

Oh man, this is rather depressing! T~T So as of right now, I'm re-applying to colleges for a transfer. My dream school ended up being not exactly what I'd imagined, and now that I can't afford it, I have to change up my plans a bit. Applications, supplemental items (transcripts from hs/college, statements, essays), and last but definitely not least.. my recorded repertoire. Just the thought of school makes me really nauseous and I can never finish an application LOL. I just stare into the screen and end up having to lay down. HAHA. Things are so stressful at home, and it baffles me to how stupid I was when I was in NY not knowing how bad things were at home--living carelessly sometimes skipping classes (which my parents were breaking their backs to pay for), going out with my friends all the time, going shopping.. it just absolutely disgusts me how childish I was.

Let's just say since May, i've finally become an adult. I thought I was grown up, but boy was I wrong.

----------------------end of babbling-------------------------

Now, onto our newest recipe! :) This recipe is NOT mine, and belong to Chef John from Foodwishes. I've made so many of his recipes and love every single one of them. He's hillarious, and a great cook!

Chicken Parmesan Bake Recipe:
Ingredients:
-2 tbsp Olive Oil
-2 cloves of Garlic, crushed (I used about 2 tsp)
-Hot red pepper flakes
-4-6 Boneless skinless chicken breasts
-2-4 cups Marinara sauce (I used Barilla Marinara)
-1/4 cup chopped Basil
-8oz. Mozzarella, shredded
-4oz. Parmesan, grated
-1 package of Garlic Croutons

Alright let's get started! :)

Japan Town One Last Time :(

Yo yo! =D So 2 days before I left to NY, my friends and I went to jtown to get some ramen one last time :( Here are some pictures! And stay tuned till the end for a review of the KissMe Cool Sunblock SPF 50!

Tutorial: Cinnamon Twists :3

Hello beautiful people! =) I noticed I haven't put up a cooking tut in awhile, and don't worry! I WILL post up the tut for the kimchi fried rice :) But.. aside from that! Yesterday on the FoodNetwork (a cooking channel for those who don't know) Giada's "Everyday Italian" happened to be on [my fav show on the channel!] She made these Cinnamon Twists and they looked soooo good! +_+ I tried to roughly remember all the measurements and ingredients, so here it is! As for the dipping sauce that she made... I didn't have a lemon with me, so when I made it without, it was absolutely atrocious. So i'm just going to skip out the sauce! Also, the pictures may say one thing, but make sure to read my descriptions because I always write up the directions according to the mistakes I made/improvements that could be made!

Difficulty: Easy
Prep time: 10 min
Baking time: 15 min

Ingredients:
-Brown sugar (dark or light, doesn't matter)
-Cinnamon
-zest of 1 Lemon
-1 Egg
-1 sheet of Puff Pastry
-Powder sugar (optional)
-OPTIONAL: Sesame seeds (preferably toasted) they look really pretty on it, but I don't really like the two tastes of sesame and cinnamon... they're just for garnish


Gather up your ingredients! Yes yes, I know there's honey in the picture, but it was used for the terrible sauce, which I don't think is worth making.

Go ahead and defrost your puff pastry; it's supposed to be kept frozen, so put out to thaw 10-15 minutes before you start! It's usually rolled up, so it's a bit tricky to unravel it! Try keeping a knife nearby for its straight edge

Cut the dough into 4 squares--cut down the center vertical line, and then one center horizontal to make a cross shape.

Cut each of the sections into 4 pieces!

Cut em all up, they should look like this :)

Now, prepare a large bowl, preferably flat and shallow; add in 2 tbs of cinnamon~

You can add your sesame seeds here, but I regret putting mine in raw, and they were just a bit overpowering the cinnamon...

and 4 tbs brown sugar :) If you want to make them more of a desert, add up to 6 tbs! You can add some powder (confectioner) sugar for more of a melt-in-your-mouth taste~

Mix up the dry ingredients! Add the lemon zest here :)

Line a baking try with some parchment paper--I ran out, so I just had to use foil :( If you use foil oil/butter/spam it up! I forgot to, so I had one hell of a time removing them when they were done -0-

This picture shows two, because the original shape I was going for was a bit different, but I liked my second idea better--just use one strip at a time!

I tried it in this shape first, but it was just too big and ugly! :/ so trust me on this one. Just use one :p

Crack your egg and beat it up real well till bubbly :) Prepare a pastry brush too! If you don't own one, you can use your hands :) Some people like to add water in their egg wash, but I think for this recipe, it's better thick.

So taking the egg wash, brush it on both sides of a strip!

Roll it around in the dry mixture and cover well :) it's okay to have missing spots! Now, taking the strip horizontally, grabbing each end of the strip, twist the ends in opposite directions~

When you're done, you should end up with a whole lot of these! 8)

The oven should be preheated by now, so pop em in for 15 minutes! Keep an eye on them after the 10 minute mark, since everyone's oven differs. Mine was a bit on the crispier side and mine was left in for 15. Maybe about 13 minutes? Go figure. (but be prepared to leave them in longer; my oven is strong enough to nuke a planet.)

Ah.. what a mess -___- this is the time to wash the dishes and clean up your work area!

They're done!

Pastries don't like to come off in one go when they're hot, so cool em just a bit!

And here we go!


Finished! =-) they're super yummy with some coffee~
I hope you enjoyed this cooking tutorial! :) Haven't made one in awhile, so i'm just a little rusty ._. Sorry for the picture overload! But I would much rather have pictures as reference, than read a huuuge paragraph and have no idea wth the author is saying. :p Just a couple things to keep in mind: 1) Don't be afraid to go a little crazy with the sugar! 2) Keep an eye on them! Once they pass a certain point, they burn quickly! 3) Stay away from sesame seeds, unless you really want em...

Sorry if this last picture scared you, because it sure scared the crap outta me while scrolling down. LOL. I've been having some problems with falling asleep lately, so I've been hella tired. I had work today, and drove home for 1.5 hrs due to a brush fire in my area.

Goodluck trying it out! :)
Best,
Jinna

Tutorial: Scottish Shortbread Cookies! =-)

Hey everyone! :)) what the hell? someone is honking outside my house right now. wow, way to ruin my blogging mood. I swear, people in my neighborhood are rich, spoiled, RUDE people with tremendously nice cars =.=;; ANYWAY! ON WITH IT! >:l

This recipe is to make Scottish Shortbr--wait. I wrote it in the title--WHAT IN THE WORLD? MY SISTER JUST CAME HOME FROM COLLEGE! HOLD ON FOLKS, BRB.

~~~20 min later~~~

what's with all these distractions today?! hahahaha. Anywho, this is a simple shortbread cookie--just like the ones that have chocolate or jams melted on em. Does that make sense..? sorry for the bad explanations... anyways, this is REALLY simple, AND made with ingredients most people have in their house. Scottish shortbread cookies are traditionally baked in thin cake pans, and cut into wedges, and eaten plain, but this recipe is the TINIEST bit bland to eat alone--but I did anyway :) Feel free to add in more sugar, or if you want to put your own toppings on it, go ahead and just use the recipe written here! It's absolutely DELIGHTFUL with tea or coffee. Really simple and quick! Whip out a batch before your friends come over for a cup of tea or coffee! Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS:
-1/4 cup powder sugar/confectioner sugar
-1/4 cup regular sugar--preferably superfine
-2 1/4 cup plain flour
-1 cup unsalted butter

OPTIONAL:
-Chocolate (white, dark, milk, anything) morsels to melt
-icing
-jam

I used Nutella as my topping on some of them... turned out a horrible idea. I don't know why I couldn't register in my head that Nutella was already melted LOL. So once I heated it up in a double boiler, it didn't melt much more, and on top of it, when I dipped the cookies in them, it wouldn't harden (duh). so it was ALWAYS moist, lol. Well, we learn from our mistakes ;)Plus, it wasn't that bad!

and...
WERE OFF!


Gather up your ingredients homefries!

Go ahead and melt your butter :) but that's the cheating way... go ahead and just leave it out overnight and use it room temp! You don't need it for this specific recipe, but normally when baking, save your butter wrappers since it has some of the residue left on it--and spread it on your baking pan!

But as I said, I cheated :)

Take a large bowl, measuring cup, whisk, and spatula.

Throw in the powder sugar...

Now time for the regular sugar!

Because I don't have superfine sugar, I used normal sugar, and just used my whisk to smash them inside the measuring cup. Better than nothing!

Add that in...

Add in your butter, and whisk away!

Now, sift some flour to cover it.

Go ahead and use your whisk, but soon enough, it won't be possible ;)

Getting thicker...

Do this many times as you need to! Use all of that flour!

Alright, It should be impossible to mix with the whisk now.

Take out the spatula and press it all down, mix it up, smash it, whatever!

Repeating the step one last time!

Finally finished :) If you're thinking, "what in the world? I put WAYY too much four in it.. now it's just crusty and falling apart..." That is absolutely correct!

Go ahead and preheat your oven to 270 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cover your cookie pan! You won't need to grease it up because there's so much butter in it LOl.

Cover an area with newspaper, magazines, w/e. Use a flat surface/large cutting board; as you see in the picture, I have neither covered my area, nor used a large board. Yeah. I learned my lesson LOL.

Dump out the mixture :)

Before you start smushing the dough together, just press the dough with your hands--the heat from your hands with melt the butter, and bind the mixture.

After you knead the dough for a bit, go ahead and shape/make your cookies. But work quickly! Touching the dough constantly will over melt the butter, and it will be a sticky dough, and hard to deal with.

I was in such a hurry I made mine ugly and super fast (I was taking too long, and the oven had already been preheated--and was yelling at me I was highering the gas bill..) Can you spot the one for puppy Sebastian? ;)

If you want more of a traditional styled cookie, go ahead and take a small fork, and poke holes in it :)

In they go for 35-40 minutes!

Pretty... I find immense pleasure in taking pictures of the food IN the oven. :)

DONE!

Let em cool off 8)

While they're cooling, bring out your double boiler, or that jar or jam! This part you can do anything you'd like. I decided to attempt at melting Nutella even more.

Covered some of em! DONE!

All this cookie smell and the sweet smell of nutella for over an hour was making me nauseated, so I made some instant Shin Ramyun Bowl :))

Hope you enjoyed this baking post! The cookies turned out really yummy with coffee! The only other thing I would not do the next time I make it would be: not dusting the board with flour (I ended up with too much, so the cookies were a bit powdery to the touch). Also, I wish I put in a liiiitle bit more sugar. ;) Next time, Ill increase the sugar level for powder sugar to 1/2 a cup instead of 1/4 ;)) This is all if you want to eat them plain, btw. If not, follow these steps (except that dusting flour on board part) and top it with w/e! Also, I wanted to thank everyone who is reading my blog and supporting me with such lovely and nice comments. Thank you! This was originally made for my own satisfaction of posting pictures of makeup and food, but somehow, others found out about it. :) Once again, thank you! If you guys have requests, go ahead!

Best,
Jinna =)