Let's Go Italian

It's Tuesday night and you know what that means?  New Food Night!  I hope that you didn't put off your own meal while waiting to see what we might be having.

I just love pasta and one of my favorite pasta dishes is Chicken Picatta.  Gary took some chicken and put it in a brine for about 30-45 minutes of water, white pepper, garlic powder and salt. When it was time to cook the chicken he seasoned it with some flour then browned it in a skillet with some olive oil and butter. He then moved the chicken to a plate and 'deglazed' the pan with white wine, chicken broth, lemon juice and lemon zest. (If you are not a cooking guru like Gary to deglaze a pan means to loosen up the crust and crumbs on the bottom of the pan). Let this reduce and add capers then toss in the pasta.  We used Angel hair pasta.

Miss Annette brought over a version of caprese salad. She took mozzarella pearls and cherry tomatoes. To these she added fresh basil and minced red onions and tossed with a balsamic vinegar.

Doesn't that look good?  It was too and I'm not usually a big vinegar person but this was excellent!

We added some garlic bread just because you need some type of bread with the meal.

And for dessert we had gellato.  What better item could you choose to end an Italian meal with?

Creamy texture -excellent flavors -- (chocolate and tiramisu).  MMMM- MMMM- good

Now if you noticed the first picture you may have noticed that we had an extra plate setting tonight (five not four).  That's because we missed another friend and invited Mr. Rick Dotts to join us for new food night. I believe he referred to the evening as 'experiment night'.

Now tell me this, what could make for a better evening than good food and good company?  Nothing at all.
And just wait until you read about next weeks meal.  Don't want to give anything away but let's just say that you are in for a surprise next week.