What's for Dinner? - Taz and Belly

Our block of gold (I mean Disney Photo CD) finally arrived this week, so I’m sharing two of our favorites. You might have seen similar photographs from our vacation, but these are the pricier “professional” photos! They have nothing to do with the remainder of this post, but my camera battery is finally charging and I really hate to post without photographs!

On tap are a few before and after projects that I’m working on (but that might not be ready to share until early next week), Friday’s home office post and a few posts about the outside of our house. Josh & I have declared this the year of the house!

Remember all that talk about home remodel and refinance? Well, we’ve finally got a game plan together and hope to get started really soon. Like Saturday. First on the list is some much needed curb appeal. We worked really hard in the yard on Saturday. I cleaned and decorated the porch for spring, we planted all of our pots, pruned, weeded, cut grass and Josh even managed to plant a few trees in our front yard. After surveying the progress, we decided another big tree and about twelve large shrubs were in order. Hopefully, we’ll be taking a trip to the nursery on Saturday morning and adding some additional beauty to the front of our house. In the next month, we hope to order the metal for our new roof and get cranking on a new back porch and patio!

Our plans for late summer include a new privacy fence around the smallest, prettiest part of our back yard (the entire yard would cost upwards of $4000!!), relocation of the swingset, the addition of a picnic table under the “tree of life” and a shady fern garden.

In the meantime, let me share a quick yummy dinner recipe which, again, has nothing to do with the rest of this post. I don’t know about you but we LOVE pasta around here and finding a great homemade alfredo sauce is liking searching for the arc of the covenant. Boxed and jarred sauces just don’t taste very good and who wants to eat out all of the time?! Here is a tried and true (and modified) version of our lemon-y alfredo pasta.

GRILLED CHICKEN WITH PASTA & LEMON ALFREDO

Simmer 1.5 cups of heavy cream over low heat, add 1 stick butter (I prefer unsalted) and stir until melted; don’t let cream come to a boil. Meanwhile, bring small pot of salted water to a rolling boil, add small pasta (I like farfalle). I usually start pan-frying a few chicken cutlets in butter, garlic and a tablespoon of lemon juice around this time (buying thin cut chicken cutlets or getting your frustrations out with a meat mallet helps the chicken finish up around the same time as your other ingredients). Once butter/cream mixture is melted, turn heat to medium low and stir in grated parmesan cheese. I use about a half a cup, but you can add in small increments and taste test along the way until you get the right level of cheesiness. Avoid using powdered parm, but the pre-grated stuff is fine, other shredded italian cheese mixes might work okay, too. Stir until cheese is melted, then reduce to low – no boiling, remember? Add a few tablespoons of lemon juice to the cream and a BIG pinch of ground nutmeg (I use an 1/8 tsp measuring spoon). Lemon juice and nutmeg might seem like easy things to skip, but they MAKE the sauce, my friend. After pasta is cooked to your liking, drain and add to sauce. Once your chicken is nice and crispy, chop it up and add it to the mix. The recipe should feed two and a half quite nicely and the pasta will have some extra sauce. You’ll want it to rake your bread through; trust me. The leftovers aren’t fabulous because the butter and cream will separate as they cool down. Don’t worry about it, though, I doubt you have any left over to worry about!

Kristin is married to her high-school sweetheart and the mother to two daughters. Professional by day and creative by night, she is a family lifestyle blogger who writes about faith, family, and fitting it all into a busy schedule. At Taz + Belly, you’ll find healthy recipes, children’s party ideas, tutorials, DIY projects, and more. Click Here to Read More About Kristin

What’s for Dinner?

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