Cooking wines are something that I don’t use too often because I’ve often assumed that they were more on the expensive side but recently, I was introduced to Holland House cooking wines.  Have you guys used them before?  Some of the most obvious cooking wine include sherry but the one that stood out to me the most out of the Holland House collection of cooking wines was the White Wine with Lemon Flavor.  <–LEMON!  We are big lemon users around here from lemon pepper to fresh lemons so when I saw that, I knew I had to incorporate into something and that something was a sauce for chicken!

I’ve made a couple of sauces using heavy cream before so I figured I’d try it with this cooking wine.  WOW oh WOW oh WOW!  Right off, I could smell the lemon in the wine while it was boiling.  That told me that I’d easily be able to taste the flavor in my sauce so it just boosted my confidence even more!  The sauce was AMAZING.  The flavor just blew me away and I have to say, while we enjoyed it in a casual setting, I am totally gonna make this when entertaining for guests.  Holy cow it was good and SOOOO easy to make!

Now I tried to measure accurately. If you don’t already know, I am terrible at measuring because I just pour or use my hands but I knew I had to get close so that you guys could make it.

INGREDIENTS

(for sauce)

• 1/2 cup or so of the Holland House White Wine with Lemon
• 5/8 cup of Heavy Cream (about 10 tablespoons)
• 1/2 cup of butter
• Salt and pepper (easy on the salt)

You’ll also need 4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts and some parsley for garnish.

DIRECTIONS

Cook your chicken breasts with a dab of olive oil, in a skillet, with salt and pepper until done.  While that is cooking, start your sauce. It doesn’t take long to make at all so wait as long as you can before making it.  In a small saucepan, boil your white wine with lemon until it’s reduced just a bit.  Pour in your heavy cream and stir until mixed well and thick.  Slowly add butter in, about a tablespoon at a time, until melted.  Season with Salt and Pepper your done!!

You can either place chicken into a nice casserole pan and pour sauce all over it, or serve chicken as individual pieces and let them pour the sauce on their own.  Either way works just fine.

This is by far one of the most flavorful sauces I’ve made and the whole recipe is one of the easiest ones around ever!  I served with green beans and we had a fantastic lunch!

So have you seen this particular wine before, with the Lemon flavor? I have several other Holland House cooking wines so I’ll have to get creative and see what I can come up with!! Because I’m new to cooking wines, I decided to sign up for the Holland House newsletter.  If the other wines provide this much flavor when cooking, I NEED MORE RECIPES!!

Disclosure: Holland House sent me the cooking wines to try in some of my recipes and supplies compensation for my time and efforts to create this recipe and post.  Opinions are my own, always have been, always will be and this opinion says ” finger lickin’ good “!

Mom has made this Baked Ziti forever, or it feels like it anyways, and hopefully it will become one of your favorites!  Just looking at it makes me drool!  Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 lb. lean ground beef
• 1 onion chopped
• 1/2 pound ziti
• 1 container (15 ounces) ricotta cheese (may use less if desired)
• 3 cups (12 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
• 3 cups bottled spaghetti sauce divided (I use the whole jar)
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 cloves garlic,minced or about 1 teaspoon of kind in a jar

DIRECTIONS

PREHEAT OVEN TO 350 DEGREES.  Cook ground beef, onion and garlic; stirring frequently. Cook until done then add spaghetti sauce and oregano.  Let Simmer.  In a large pot, cook ziti in boiling water until just barely tender; drain and place in a large bowl.  Mix the ricotta cheese WITH appx.4 ounces OF mozzarella cheese and about 1 cup of the spaghetti sauce with the ziti.  Grease a 9 x 13 baking pan; cover bottom of pan with 1/3 the spaghetti sauce.  Spoon half the ziti mixture into the pan; cover with half OF the remaining spaghetti sauce and half of the cheese.

REPEAT.

Sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese and top with the remaining mozzarella cheese.  Bake for 20 to 30 minutes or until cheese melts and is lightly golden.

Note: serve with garlic toast and salad

Note 2: For a lighter toast version, place toast under broiler to brown then rub in garlic clove to add flavor (see pic)

INGREDIENTS

• 3 garlic cloves, crushed and minced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 cups semolina flour (can use all-purpose flour – will taste slightly different)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 large eggs
• 1/4 cup finely chopped basil
• 1 to 2 tablespoons water, if needed

STEPS

• * In a small skillet, cook garlic in oil over low heat, stirring constantly for one minute.
• * If using an electric mixer, put remaining ingredients into the mixer bowl, add the garlic and mix using the flat paddle for about a minute or two until the ingredients are combined. It should form a dry dough when you squeeze it together with your hands. If it doesn’t, add some water a teaspoon at a time, mixing and checking for the right consistency.
• * If making by hand, pile the flour up on a counter or table and make a well in the top. Put the eggs, salt, garlic and basil into the well and stir to combine. When it comes together, begin kneading, again adding water only if needed to hold the dough together. The dough should be very dry.
• * Allow the dough to rest for 15 minutes.
• * Use pasta roller or pasta roller attachment to roll the pasta to the desired thickness and cut into whatever type of noodles you like. For this recipe, use the fettuccine cutter. I use a pie cutter and cut the noodles into 3-inch wide pieces for lasagna. You can make this into spaghetti or angel hair pasta if you like, or if you have a pasta extruder, you can make macaroni.
• * Leftovers can be dried using a pasta rack or put into the freezer.
• * To cook fresh noodles, bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the noodles in the water for 2 minutes. If frozen, add 1 minute to cooking time.

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Meaty Pasta Sauce

INGREDIENTS

• 1 chipotle pepper, minced
• 1/2 medium onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 pound ground turkey
• 1 bottle pasta sauce
• 2 tablespoons dried basil
• 1 teaspoon adobo sauce

STEPS

• * Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Sauté the onions, garlic and chipotle peppers.
• * Add meat and basil and cook until meat is browned.
• * Add pasta sauce and adobo sauce and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Guest Poster: Andrea loves to cook, eat and share the fruits of her kitchen with anyone who appreciates them. In her spare time, she posts recipes and cat stories at the Furry Kitchen and is creating a cookbook to help the cooking-challenged.

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Yes, I know the title is silly but I’m tired..after all, it’s 2am here.  Anyways, we had the opportunity to try some of the World Harbors Buccaneer Blends BBQ Sauce out today.  We went and bought some Big Boy’s Barbecue, which happened to make it into the Texas Monthly’s Top Barbecue joints, and brought it home to make some brisket sandwiches.  Now it came with sauce of course, but we couldn’t pass up the chance to try these sauces out! 

My oldest, who loves anything spicy, chose the Fra Diavlo.  It just sounds hot and it should, after all, it has 5 spicy peppers in it!  He LOVED it! 

The rest of my crew loved it as well.  Me?  Well, I can’t eat spicy stuff but lucky for me, they have several other flavors to choose from like:

• Good ol’ Mesquite
• Apple Maple
• Sticky Rum
• and Honey Mango to name a few!

What?  You need to see it just a tick closer?  You bet!

YES, we use bread!  If we used buns, it would take away from the meat and the sauce and we can’t have that;)   It’s too hot to be cookin’ huge meals and this one BBQ sandwich tasted like heaven!

Oh my what fun we’re gonna have using the other World Harbors BBQ Sauces on things like chicken, ribs, baked beans!!! YUMMY!  Just in case you didn’t notice, they also have steak sauce.  Yep, we have some.  Nope, we haven’t tried it yet but you can bet your toes that we will be and I’ll post about it once we do!

OH!  And guess what??!!  I’ve got a bottle to give you..woohoo!  One lucky winner will receive a bottle of the Apple Mango and all you have to do is leave a comment!  We’ll just see how many of you read my posts;)  This will end on June 7th at around 10:00pm CST time.  Good luck!

Also, be sure to visit the site, you can vote to be entered to win a brand spankin’ new BBQ Grill:)  It takes all of 5 seconds so don’t be lazy!

Until the next BBQ sandwich…………