I often prefer cooking chicken thighs over chicken breasts. Thighs are juicy, more flavorful, and don’t dry out. I use bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs most often.

The thing I don’t like about using skin-on chicken pieces is all the extra skin that is left on when you bring them home from the store.

Use your kitchen shears to trim off all that extra skin and discard.

This dish comes together in a snap, it only takes about 15 minutes to prep and is in the oven for about 45 minutes while you prepare the rest of the dinner. I like to serve the thighs and their rich herb sauce over couscous.

When you use the side of your chef’s knife to lightly smash the garlic cloves, you are looking for each clove to break up slightly, making each clove come apart into 2 or 3 smaller pieces. You don’t want to obliterate them, use a light touch.

You can purchase the pancetta at Trader Joe’s. It comes in a convenient 4-ounce package and is already diced into the perfect size. Simply open the package and scatter over the chicken when called for.

My former neighbor and dear friend, Lisa James, and I meet up to walk several mornings a week. On the mornings we don’t walk, Lisa teaches spin class at the YMCA. The Y closed several weeks ago and since then, we walk every morning. For years, I’ve heard about Lisa’s Pepper Pasta. It is one of her family’s most requested recipes. One morning last week, she mentioned that she had made it the night before. Finally, I asked her if she would share the recipe. She did one better and gave me the recipe and a container of leftovers to try.

I had it that same evening for dinner and I can see why her family loves it so much. When I went to the store to buy the Italian sausage and canned tomatoes, the store was out of canned tomatoes.

So I decided to make it with what I had in my freezer, shredded chicken and roasted cherry tomatoes. Below is my “use what you have” take on Lisa’s recipe. To make Lisa’s original version, switch out the chicken for sweet or hot Italian sausage and cook the sausage in the skillet first and use a 32 to 35-ounce can of plum tomatoes in place of the roasted cherry tomatoes. Also, you may not need the reserved pasta water for the original, since you will have the juice from the canned tomatoes. But it never hurts to reserve a little pasta water for any pasta recipe, just in case you need it.

Photo courtesy of Pinkerton Photography

My cousin and my friend, Michelle Lorts, gave me a tin of Red Rock Lavender Lemon Pepper. Michelle owns Studio Fiore and is the florist who created the stunning flowers for Marissa’s wedding.

Photo credit: Red Rock Ranch & Farms

A few weeks ago, Michelle and a few girlfriends took a day trip to visit the lavender fields at Red Rock Ranch & Farms in Concho, Arizona.

Concho is in the White Mountains, about a 3½ hour drive from Scottsdale.

Photo credit: Red Rock Ranch & Farms

I’ve always thought about going for the Lavender Festival, but never pulled the trigger on it, maybe next year.

I used her gift to make a delicious chicken dish. You can make it too, even if you don’t have a tin of the Red Rock Lavender mix because I’ve included the proportions to make the herb and spice mixture on your own at the bottom of this post.

I also used one of my favorite local olive oils, Queen Creek Olive Mill Meyer Lemon Olive Oil. You may use regular olive oil as a substitute. Of course, you if want to make this recipe using the unique Arizona spice mixture and olive oil, the links are here for you to order those items online. Enjoy!

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Of all the dishes I made for our Easter brunch, this was just about everybody’s favorite. Well maybe, except for the biscuits, because, come on, they’re biscuits! So that’s a given.

I especially love the herb dressing. I’ll be making it again and again.

I used a mix of colored potatoes from Trader Joe’s but you can just use regular new potatoes. Other than that, I followed this recipe pretty much to a T.  The link to the original recipe from Southern Living is at the bottom of this post.

When you measure the 2 cups of radishes, it doesn’t matter if you measure them before cutting or after, it comes out just about the same either way.

And when asparagus goes out of season, long green beans will be just as pretty and just as tasty.

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There is so much to talk about today!

First of all, do you want $100 in cash? For free? If so, you still have time to enter and a shot at winning it. Just leave a comment here and you’re in the Wednesday drawing. That’s all you have to do!

You can just say, “Hang in there baby, Monday’s almost over.” Or, “Hey Linda, I understand your life is in a state of change and flux but you really need to get back to posting recipes more often!” Or just, “Hi.”  Anyhow, learn more about the Happy 8th Blogiversary Contest at this Link and leave a comment today.

Secondly, feast your eyes on this hilarious vintage-style oven mitt that my adorable friend, Lisa, gave me! She told me she had a prize for me (what I did to deserve a prize, I don’t know, but I need to figure it out so I can do it again and again!)  I love it! Thank you, Lisa! xoxo.  The oven mitt says so and it is true, below there is a new recipe that I’m droppin’ on y’all.

Lastly, have you heard that in just about 2 hours there is going to be a total eclipse of the sun? No one is talking about it, but it’s true! It’s all going down at 10:34 AM, Arizona Time. If you’re like me and don’t have eclipse glasses and have been too lazy to make a viewing box, set your timer and look out the window and see how dark it looks and say, “Well, that was cool.” and go about your day.

The boys all came over for dinner last night and I made yummy smashed new potatoes. When I was taking photos of the process, I inadvertently made my own little potato eclipse. Cool! No special glasses are needed to view this baby!

Wrecking Ball Baby Potatoes with Garlic and Rosemary

• 20 new (baby) potatoes
• 2 tablespoons kosher salt
• 5 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely minced
• Sea salt (preferably Maldon Sea Salt Flakes)
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup fresh minced rosemary leaves

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Peggy, Anne and I are at my timeshare in Carlsbad, CA for the week.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon.

Upon our arrival, I opened the hatch of my car … and this happened. We may have over-packed a tad.

My intention was to post daily. Turns out that the WiFi is easily overworked here at the resort. This is the first day I have not been kicked off before I could at least load the photos. I’ll post as often as the network will allow.

We had a planning session before we left town, each taking a night or two to cook dinner. I was up first with a ravioli dish that I was inspired to make from an Instagram photo my friend, Gwen, posted last week. Gwen has a gorgeous blog called Pen & Fork. You can always get to it over in the “Foodie Blogroll” on the right side of the page.

For the mushroom ravioli, I used the Trader Joe’s brand. It comes with truffle sauce, which you do not want to use in this recipe.

These are the truffle sauce frozen squares. They are easily picked out and removed from the ravioli squares. You can throw them back in the freezer and use them for another pasta night or you can throw them in the trash. That’s what I do because I’m not a huge truffle fan. I’ll eat it if it’s served to me but I don’t go out of my way to put it in my mouth.

The spinach is cut into thin strips. When cutting leafy greens, the technique to do so is called chiffonade. It is easy to do, just stack the leaves, roll them up tightly and slice. The word is French and translates to “little ribbons.”

“Brothy Situation” Mushroom Ravioli with Shredded Chicken

• 4 cups chicken broth
• 2 shallots, peeled and thinly sliced
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
• 8 to 10 sprigs fresh thyme
• 5 sprigs fresh oregano
• 5 sprigs fresh rosemary
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 3 cups shredded rotisserie chicken
• 4 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms; cleaned, stems removed and thinly sliced
• 1 cup baby spinach leaves, chiffonade
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced
• 1 pound package frozen mushroom ravioli
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, garnish
• Roughly chopped fresh herbs (thyme, rosemary and oregano)

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In yesterday’s post, I spoke of my childhood trauma with canned vegetables and encouraged you to share childhood food stories of your own. Lori and Amy obliged and shared both hilarious and horrifying stories. Thank you! I laughed and cringed at the same time. The best part – bits of each of your stories are parts of my hot cereal story, so now I’m going to have to share it!

Not today though. In my next post, I promise.

Today, I’m going to give you a recipe that will use up extra horseradish root you may have after making the fresh horseradish sauce that went with Wednesday’s beef brisket recipe. I had a big piece of horseradish root left, so something needed to be done with it.

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Two Sundays ago was Easter and I’m still posting Easter recipes. This past Sunday I was in Austin and Marissa and Jeff took me to Gospel Brunch – it was AMAZING!

There are several restaurants in Austin that serve brunch with a side of gospel music, we went to Stubb’s BBQ and heard The Original Bells of Joy. What an absolute JOY it was. Thanks, M & J!

The night before that we took a boat cruise out on Lady Bird Lake and watched as the 750,000 pregnant Mexican bats started out for a night of hunting.

You can read all about it HERE. It is a truly beautiful and fascinating sight to behold.

My Easter ham was a no-brainer.  I bought a spiral-cut ham at Costco. I mixed together some whole-grain Dijon mustard (1/4 cup) with 1/2 cup each of the following; maple syrup, brown sugar, and fresh orange juice. I spread that all over the ham put it on a rack and stuck it in a 325-degree oven for 90 minutes. That was it. No recipe is needed and no photos were taken of the easy process.

The lamb was almost as simple, though I do have a recipe and photos for you. I bought a little French-trimmed rack of lamb at Costco, cut it into chops, and served the chops with a chimichurri sauce.

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The first side dish from our Easter supper was a rich, creamy, cheesy, and garlicky potato au gratin. So Good!

Bonus! A new tip comes along with this recipe. I found the tip on Epicurious.com and thought it was brilliant!

The most time-consuming and frustrating herb to remove the leaves from is thyme. Here is a new way to go about it.

TIP: Use a strainer! Stick the end of a sprig of thyme through one of the little holes and pull through. The leaves stay behind in the strainer. See – Brilliant!

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The second entrée salad of our Spring Reunion Dinner contained farro.  Farro is a type of wheat grain. Regular farro needs to be soaked overnight, but quick-cook and ready-to-use farro is ready in only 10 minutes and can be easily found in most grocery stores, including Trader Joe’s. Be sure to find a quick-cook package.

A grill basket is also a must for this recipe. Grill baskets are the only way to go when grilling small items, such as shrimp and cut vegetables.

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