3 Mustard Chicken For Dinner With Mendel Bread For Dessert

Photo: Butter Your Biscuit: Click the photos for each blog’s recipe.

I was served a delicious 3 Mustard Chicken dinner by a friend, which I’m too lazy to make without a few tweaks. I don’t aim to buy 3 different mustards for one chicken dish to complicate its preparation! First, I’ll list the original ingredients, my friend’s recipe:

3 Mustard Chicken

Ingredients:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3 tbsp Dijon mustard
3 tbsp whole grain mustard
2 tbsp hot-honey mustard
1 to 2 tbsp honey (adjust to taste)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp chicken stock
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Next: The 3 Mustard Chicken Dinner with Debra’s tweaks:

Photo: Sandra Valvassori

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
8 tbsp of any mustard - I have Dijon and yellow mustard. (Sometimes I buy spicy brown or whole grain, but didn’t for this.)
1 tbsp honey

1 cup water (I like sauce!)
1 large chicken bouillon

2 minced garlic cloves

1 medium onion, sliced

1 teaspoon of either dried rosemary or thyme (Both are tasty on chicken and look pretty. I used rosemary.)

1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper to sprinkle on the raw chicken breasts

A pad of butter to grease the pan

A sprinkle of dried parsley after it was plated

Directions:

1) Salt and pepper both sides of the chicken.

2) Whisk together the mustard, water, chicken bouillon, honey,  garlic, and spices in a bowl into a smooth sauce.

3) Butter a baking dish. Lay onion slices on the baking sheet, and arrange the chicken breasts on top. Alternately you can cook it in a 12” chef’s skillet on a stovetop, covered with a lid.

4) Pour the mustard-honey sauce over the chicken breasts, fully coating each piece.

5) Bake in a preheated 400°F oven for 30 minutes or until the chicken breasts are white and tender. Alternately, simmer at midium-low on top of your stove until the chicken is fully cooked.

Photo: The CookieRookie

Let the chicken rest for at least 5 minutes before serving. Slice the chicken breasts and pour a good amount of sauce over them. Serve with potatoes and vegetables of your choice.

While hot-honey mustard is delicious and I love it, I don’t think you need to buy it for a chicken dish when you use mustard, honey, and red pepper flakes as ingredients. As noted, this dish can also be cooked in a 12” skillet on a stovetop. Steel or cast-iron skillets heat up hot and cook evenly, grilling to perfection. Drizzled in honey-mustard sauce, I bought 3 very large chicken breasts and sliced them to serve on a platter. The chicken breasts get so tender, and the sauce tastes amazing! This may the way I make chicken from now on. The dish works equally well with chicken thighs for dark meat lovers.

Mine on the stovetop

I have no idea who created this scrumptious recipe, as it's floating around the internet on all forms of social media. The finished mustard chicken from the 3 cooks I’m featuring on my blog looks amazing! Click the identifying photos to go to their blogs to compare their recipes. Making this recipe our own leads down the same road to deliciousness!

🌆🏢🥯🏙🗽🏛🌆🏢🥯🏙🗽🏛🌆🏢🥯🏙🗽🏛🌆🏢🥯🏙🗽

What a fabulous melting pot New York City is! Inspired by my Jewish friends and neighbors who’ll celebrate Yom Kippur soon, here is a simple dessert for tea(s), or when you make this mustard chicken dinner for friends. It can be made days ahead of the dinner:

 Mandel Bread is a traditional Jewish biscotti-type cookie. It is short for mandelbrot, which means almond bread. Dry, not overly sweet, like Scottish shortbread, but a different tasting cookie.

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour

From Sparks Kitchen

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

a pinch of salt

1/2 cup white sugar

1 tsp cinnamon - Traditionally, the finished rectangular cookies are rolled in cinnamon sugar, but I toss the cinnamon into the batter.)

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

2 tsp almond extract

1/2 cup of nuts (any, chopped almonds or walnuts or pecans)

Directions:

1) Using a fork, mix the dry ingredients in one mixing bowl.

2) With a fork, mix the wet ingredients in a 2nd mixing bowl.

3) Incorporate the wet and dry ingredients. Fold in the nuts, and refrigerate for 2 hours. This prevents the dough from spreading out.

4) On a buttered baking sheet or long baking pan, shape and the dough into a long, flat, even log and bake at 350 degrees F for 25 - 30 minutes, until it is lightly browned.

5) Cool the finished cookies for 15 minutes (so they don’t fall apart), then cut into rectangles, squares, or diagonals. You do you! These cookies go back onto the baking sheet for a 2nd baking at 25o degrees F for another 20 minutes. Remove and cool. I do not roll them in cinnamon sugar because I don’t want them sweeter or the mess of sugar falling off the cookies, nor do I relish getting my fingers mucked up. Avoid messes and extra dishes to wash by not creating situations for the messes to occur! 

Sparks Kitchen has ultra-fancy Mendel bread stacks that can be ordered for pickup, delivery, or shipping. Even easier, and there’s no shame in buying the cookies! We can do both at different times, right?😋

You may also enjoy:

All Beef Salisbury Steak

Spicy Shrimp With Artichoke

Top Round London Broil Steak

Stove Top Roast Chicken With Gravy

Tasting Mead Is On My Bucket List

Photo: Lifehack

Although I enjoy a glass of red wine with dinner, I don't drink more than a glass or 2 about every 4 - 12 weeks as I'd rather spend my calories eating than drinking. Unfortunately, you can't do both if you hope to maintain a healthy weight after a certain age. That said, I have never tasted mead and would like to!

The following newspaper article is so well written and since I know absolutely nothing about mead other than some vague notion that it was the drink of Vikings and medievals, I'm simply going to directly quote and link the article below ...

According to Rob Adams, a meadmaker interviewed in the Charlotte Observer, mead is " 'an alcoholic beverage made with honey and water, then fermented with yeast. It can range from sweet to dry. It can also be traditional (just honey, water, and yeast), or it can include fruit, vegetables, spices, herbs, or malted grains — like beer.' "

Photo: Lifehack

Continuing with the article: " 'To make mead, you blend honey and water to form a ‘must,’ which is what the watered down honey liquid is called before fermentation,'” according to Adams. He explains that " 'the term must is also used in wine and cider making.'

'Once you have prepared the must, yeast is added to convert the sugar from the honey into alcohol,' Adams went on ... 'Since honey is almost 100 percent sugar, you need to add nutrients during the fermentation so the yeasts are happy and healthy — and so they don’t contribute unwanted flavors.' "

Adams says," 'You can add fruit, spices, etc. at any point during the fermentation, depending on what flavor or aroma you intend to impart.' "

Age is the element that sets mead apart from cider and wine. 

Another meadmaker, Kevin Martin, explains that " 'Mead is likely the very first fermented beverage on earth ... which makes sense ... because honey as a sugar source was available before other processed sugars and sweetening methods.' "

The ingredients in a Basic Mead Recipe are the following:

10 pounds honey

4 gallons water

2 teaspoons yeast energizer

2 teaspoons yeast nutrient

2 packets of lalvin k1-v1116 yeast (wine yeast)

The website Lifehack has 10 Best Mead Recipes which look amazing!🍹 

So after reading my blog today, maybe I won't have to drink alone. Wouldn't you, too, like to have a refreshing glass of mead? Skàl! Have you ever tasted it? 

You may also enjoy:

Great Find, Greek Wine

Let's Plan A Wine Party

My Impromptu Red Wine Sangria

Ale To The Chef: The White House Beer Recipe

A Honey Of A Cake

Photo: King Arthur flour

Today I'm making a Honey Cake, which traditionally is served without frosting. But, what is a cake sans frosting? A loaf of bread ... unfinished, right? So I will include a recipe for a buttermilk frosting. A Honey Cake is delicious dressed, or naked. You decide how you wish to eat it.

Honey Cake

Ingredients:

1 cup sliced almonds

1 1/2 cups Whole Wheat Flour

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup honey

3 large eggs

2 tablspoons butter at room temperature

1/4 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F and pull out 2 large mixing bowls and 2 cake pans (either 8'' or 9'' cake pans will do).

1) In one bowl shift together the dry ingredients: whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and 1/4 cup of sliced almonds.

2) In the 2nd bowl with an electric mixer, beat together the honey, eggs and butter.

3) Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.

4) Next whisk in the butter and vanilla extract.

5) Line the almonds on the bottom of the greased cake pans, then pour the batter over the almonds in the pans.

6) Bake at 325 degrees F for 50 minutes, or until done in the center.

Buttermilk Frosting

Ingredients:

About 1/4 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 - 2 cups powdered sugar

Directions:

1) Mix all the ingredients together. I keep adding the powdered sugar until I get a thick yet spreadable frosting consistency. If needed, add few drops of buttermilk at a time to arrive at the right creaminess.

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Optional Frosting flavors: (1) Add a teaspoon of lemon or orange zest for a citrus flavored icing. (2) Or 1 teaspoon of instant coffee for a mocha icing, if you like.

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2) Spread the buttermilk frosting on top and sides of the cake.

Without a doubt, a Honey Cake is a treat, but with some good ingredients: almonds (protein), whole wheat (a whole grain) and eggs (protein, vitamin E). Enjoy a slice!

You may also enjoy:

Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake

German Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake

Coffee Walnut Cake: High Tea My Way  

Buttermilk Layer Cake: Vanilla Or Chocolate