Chicken Piccata

This is one of my favorite dishes. It's relatively simple to make but tastes and looks like a gourmet meal. 

Chicken Piccata

Ingredients:

4 chicken cutlets
1/4 cup flour
Salt & pepper to taste
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 cup white wine
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon capers, drained
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Fresh lemon slices

Season cutlets with salt & pepper, then coat in flour.
Saute cutlets on each side until slightly brown.
Deglaze pan with white wine and add minced garlic. Cook until garlic is slightly brown and liquid is nearly gone, about 2 min.
Add broth, lemon juice, and capers. Simmer with chicken for 2-3 min.
Top cutlets with melted butter and garnish with lemon slices.

Enjoy!

 

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Play Kitchen Renovation

I've received several questions about the play kitchen which was seen in the post about Sophie's Sesame Street Party.

My dad built this play kitchen for my sister and I when we were kids. But at that time, it looked like this:

We remodeled it a little over a year ago and it's been getting heavy use from Sophie ever since. See how we did it after the break!

Quite a difference, huh? But boy did we love playing with it. We spent many happy hours "cooking" in that kitchen.

Here is me and my dad on Christmas morning when he first gave it to us:

 

And my sister playing with it:

It's been up in the attic collecting dust for the past 2 decades until I decided to freshen it up for Sophie. I told my Dad he did a great job building it but it needed a woman's touch in terms of color! First I sanded it down really well.

 Then removed all the hinges, sink and faucet and took the doors off to sand those as well.

Painted it with a primer to cover the dark stain:

I selected some bright and cheerful paint colors. 

And Robbie cut a hole in the oven door and covered it with plexiglass so it would look more like a real oven.

Then we spruced it up with new hardware, stove burners, and sink/faucet. My husband got the "sink" from a restaurant supply store. It's actually one of those warming trays that caterers use. I found the faucet on eBay. To make the stove burners, I spray painted cork mats silver and cut strips to look like burners from glitter foam sheets. 

 

These great bins for holding food and dishes came from Dollar Tree.

Sophie has lots of fun food items to stock with kitchen with (you can click any link below to go directly to the product page at Amazon): 

Green Toys Dish Set 

Made from recycled materials, Sophie loves to serve what she cooks these.

Green Toys Tea Set 
What little girl doesn't love tea parties? Enough said.

Kidcraft Deluxe Cookware Set  

Melissa & Doug Slice and Bake Cookie Set
I would highly recommend any of the Melissa & Doug toys, and this one is my personal favorite. You can remove the icing and stack the cookies together in the canister, then cut them apart with the knife. The icing attaches with velcrow so you can "decorate" them yourself..

Melissa & Doug Ice Cream Scoop Set
This one is a close second favorite. The ice cream easily attaches to the scoop with a magnet.

Melissa & Doug Bake and Decorate Cupcake Set
This one comes with markers (aka icing) that you can use the decorate the cupcakes, then easily wipe off when done. Just don't leave a 2 year old unattended with this. I didn't realize they were real markers when we first got it and marker almost ended up on our white rug!

Melissa & Doug Birthday Party Cake

Melissa & Doug Pizza Party

Melissa & Doug Felt Food - Sandwich Set

If you'd like to purchase any of these products, please click on the links above or the image in the carousel below to purchase directly from Amazon.

I couldn't be happier with the final product!

And most importantly Sophie approves! (These pictures are from March 2012 when we gave it to her! Look how tiny she is!)

I hope it brings her as many sweet memories as it did me!

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Here in Our Corner: Treasure Hunt

When I was little my grandmother gave me a ton of costume jewelry to play dress up with. She used to work at the jewelry counter at a department store before retiring and had accumulated lots of it over the years. My sister and I enjoyed playing with it, but it eventually wound up in the attic when we got older. 

About 5 or 6 years ago my dad found it when he was cleaning out the attic, and I decided to get rid of it. I offered it to my mother in law to use in her costume shop at school. (She teaches art and costume design).  But she suggested that I hang on to it in case I ever had a little girl to share it with. 

So it wound up in our attic. Along came Sophie and now she's old enough to play with it. Sophie has really been into pirates, and maps, and treasure lately. She's always pretending to be going on treasure hunts. 

So I put together a scavenger hunt for her with the jewelry as the "treasure."  I simply wrote the following  "clues" on pieces of paper and rolled them up like maps:

• Look for the clue in your shoe. 
• Wouldn't it be funny if there was a map with your bunny?
• You might get what you wish if you look under the fish. 
• Look for the key in the tree.
• To find the treasure, now you need to go and look under the rainbow. 

Cheesy I know, but I didn't have much time to plan and come up with anything better! Robbie had already let Sophie see the "treasure chest" without knowing I had planned to do this so I had to scramble and come up with something quick. We held her off from opening it long for me to throw this game together and stash the treasure chest in her princess castle where I taped a quick drawing of a rainbow to the roof to relate to the last clue. 

She has such a ball running from one place to the next and finding another "map." And oh boy, when she found the treasure she was soooo excited! Jewels! Sparkly jewels!

Unfortunately we should've inspected the jewelry closer before giving it to her. Time has taken a toll on these pieces and 3 necklaces popped within 5 min of her taking them out of the box. Others are barely hanging on. So I'll have to go through it and make a few things magically disappear before the next time she gets her hands on it!