Italian Chicken

This is AMAZING and easy.

(Can be halved easily for smaller families, but the leftovers are delicious for days and days!)

5 - 6 chicken breasts - (I cut them in half so they cook through faster and so it's easier to dish out correct portions to my little ones)

4 - 5 roma tomatoes chopped up

2 cloves of garlic minced

Jar of artichoke hearts drained (no need to buy marinated ones - I just got the metal can of quartered hearts in the vegetable aisle)  

1 C mozzarella cheese grated

salt and pepper

2 T olive oil

2 T flour

fresh basil if desired - chopped up

Cut up chicken, arrange in bottom of 9 x 13 pan and season with salt and pepper.

Chop up tomatoes and artichoke hearts.  Mix with minced garlic, olive oil, flour and some salt and pepper.

Arrange tomato / artichoke mixture around the chicken in the pan.  (Looks so pretty!) 

Bake at 350 until chicken is done (start checking after about 1/2 hour).

Place basil and melt mozzarella on top before removing from oven.

Serve over pasta (like angel hair or whatever!) Be sure to scoop up some of the delicious sauce from the bottom of the pan.

Black Sorcery Fondue

Our Valentine's day tradition is to have a fondue dinner with our kids.  I don't feel the need to go out ON valentine's day and wait hours to eat at a restaurant that I can go to a few days later and get right in.  So, it's a stay-at-home, celebrate-with-the-family type of day for us. 

This year, I'm foregoing the entire fondue dinner because I may or may not be having a baby, but we're going to stick with dessert.  So, here is my favorite recipe - Black Sorcery Fondue!

2 T light corn syrup

1/2 C half-and-half

8 - 9 oz of semi-sweet good chocolate - like Ghiradelli

1 t vanilla

Put everything together in a double boiler and heat slowly, stirring frequently until melted and blended.

You can transfer the mixture to a true fondue pot to keep warm, but we eat it so fast, we just keep it in the double boiler.

Our favorite things to dip:

vanilla wafers

strawberries

bananas

marshmallows

pretzles

pound or angel food cake squares