Passing it on….or not

 My Grandma was a wonderful cook!  Sitting  at her dining room table and enjoying her delicious meals was such a treat!  Grandma also loved to set an elegant table.  She always used a beautiful tablecloth and she carefully set the table with her fancy china.  My mother gave me some of my grandma’s dishes after she died and I think of her every time I use them.  Grandma passed down her love of making special meals to my mother and my mother was a wonderful cook!  Mom decorated her tables for every season with tablecloths she fashioned from a netting underskirt topped with sequined, embellished appliques.  Often times mom made an apron out of the same netting to match her tablecloths.  If mom was wearing one of her fancy aprons…you knew the meal was going to be extra special!  Mom passed down her love of cooking to me.  And this is where everything broke down!  I’ve felt like such a failure because  I didn’t know how to pass the skill I have of cooking down to my daughters!   But…fortunately I’m starting to think that the art of cooking and setting a beautiful table might somehow be genetic and I think my girls might just have inherited this craft from some wonderful gene that they’ve received from some ancient,  past relative.  I’m saying this because Kim, our oldest daughter is starting to get real excited about cooking!  She now loves fancy dishes… loves to set a beautiful table and is very excited about trying and serving delicious new recipes! Kim recently served me a wonderful mustard chicken dish and I want to share this recipe with you!  It’s really good and you’ve just got to try this!!!  Oh and Katie is becoming a great cook too!  I’ll share some of the recipes she’s discovered in upcoming blogs.

Honey- tangy chicken:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1/2 cup  honey

1/2 cup  Dijon mustard

1/4 cup melted butter

1/4 cup fresh ground pepper

1 cup dried breadcrumbs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Mix sauce  using the first five ingredients, reserving 1/4 cup of sauce.  Spray a baking pan with Pam.  Pat chicken breast dry and dip in 1/4 of the sauce mixture then in the breadcrumbs and place in the sprayed baking pan.  Do this with each chicken breast.  Pour the saved 3/4 of the sauce over the chicken and bake for about 45 minutes until the juices run clear.   I like to bake the breasts uncovered until it browns a bit, basting the chicken often.  After it browns, cover and bake until done.

This dish is great with rice.  After the chicken is baked, the sauce could be thickened with a bit of cornstarch and poured over the rice.  Serve with a salad or a pretty green vegetable and you have a delicious dinner!

Blessings, Linda