Chicken Piccata

Last night I made one of my childhood favorites, my Mom's Chicken Piccata. Over the years I've tried several other versions, but I always come back to this one.  It's so simple and quick to prepare, and its good leftover.  After posting this on Instagram, I got a few requests to share the recipe, so here it is!

Ingredients: 

6-8 chicken tenders
Flour
2 Tb vegetable oil
4 Tb butter
1 chicken bouillon cube dissolved in 1/3 cup water
2 lemons
1 Tb capers 

Directions: 

Sprinkle chicken tenders with salt.  Shake in a bag with flour.  Heat the oil and butter in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat.  When the oil/butter mixture starts to bubble, add the chicken and cook 3 minutes each side until lightly browned (and cooked all the way though).  Remove chicken from skillet and place on wire rack.  After all chicken is cooked add the bouillon solution to skillet and stir to release brown bits from bottom of pan.  Increase heat to high, add juice of 1 lemon, 8 slices of lemon, and capers. Cook 2-3 minutes until sauce thickens slightly.  Pour sauce over chicken and serve.

Serves 2-3

Papi's Tacos

Every time I try a new restaurant I order way too much food, and my first time at Papi's Tacos was no exception.  I think I just get way too excited about all of these new things that I've never tried, and I don't want to leave without tasting them.

In the last year, Greenville has gotten quite a few places that feature gourmet street tacos, including Gringo's and The Local Taco.  But Papi's has done a great job differentiating themselves from the others.  It feels much more authentic to me.  I love the story of this place, too.  Jorge Baralles, known as Papi to most, has been with the Table 301 restaurant group since the doors opened in 1997.  Papi started as a dishwasher, and worked his way up in the company through the years.  He now has a restaurant named after him that serves the kind of food that he grew up eating in Mexico.

Table 301 has also done a great job at differentiating this restaurant from all of their others. I'm sure this was quite a challenge since they already own six other restaurants in the small town of Greenville. Papi's is very casual with a simple menu, and quite small inside.  They actually describe it as a stationary taco truck.  Table 301's answer to the food truck craze, genius. 

We tried three different kinds of tacos; Shrimp, Chicken and Chorizo, and Carnitas.  We split an order of chips and salsa, and ordered their secret menu item- The Walking Taco.  We  also shared a Tamarind Agua Fresca, a fresh house made juice.  I wasn't lying when I said we ordered a lot of food.

The tacos were great.  All of the ingredients used were fresh and ripe, just like they should be.  T and I were wishing for a hotter salsa though, the one they gave us just wasn't doing the trick.  They offer a Salsa Verde and Peanut Salsa, so we'll try one of the two next time.  Hopefully one of those will have more heat.

Then came The Walking Taco.  This isn't on the menu, but they always serve them for $5.00.  It's a bag of Fritos topped with pulled pork, shredded lettuce, queso fresco, sour cream, and pico de gallo.  At first I was set on eating this out of the Fritos bag, but it was actually easier to dump it in the bowl it was served in. 

All in all we were very impressed with Papi's tacos.  We loved the atmosphere, and the food was authentic and fresh.  We'll be back for sure, but next time I'll probably limit myself to just two tacos...or three.

My New Logo

I've been so excited to share my new logo with you.  It's taken several months to get everything finalized, but the waiting was well worth it for me.  A lot of thought went into the design of my logo, and I wanted to share with you everything that it represents.  Here goes. 

A River
It was obvious that the river needed to be represented in the logo somehow.  The negative space acts as the flowing Reedy River.

A Leaf
While very subtle, the containing shape as a leaf represents the beautiful downtown area of Greenville and the Upstate

The R
As the visual of the river cuts through he visual of a leaf, you are left with a loose shape of an R, referring directly back to The Reedy Review.

The Quotes
While an extremely loose reference, the two separate shapes of the logo are representative of quotation marks.  This idea references the actual reason behind a blog- the personal viewpoint and  opinions of an individual.

So there you have it, the meaning behind my new logo.  Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

 

Five on Friday

This Friday, like every other Friday, I'm linking up with April, Natasha, Darci, and Christina for their Five on Friday post.  Here are the five things that are getting me through this last day of the work week.

{one.}
New Girl Season 2 is on Netflix! T and I just got into this show a few months ago when Season 1 became available for streaming on Netflix.  I was bummed when I heard Season 3 would start airing this week.  I didn't want to start watching it without seeing what happens in Season 2.  So now we're recording all of Season 3 for later watching while we make our way through Season 2 as quickly as we can- I have a feeling that's not going to be too difficult. We're averaging 3 shows per night.

{two.}
I, along with the rest of the world, downloaded the new iOS 7.0 software on my iPhone this week.  There are several changes in the look of the interface, but I'm digging it.  I feel like I just go a new phone!

{three.}
I can't believe I didn't add this to my Five on Friday last week, but my new blog design is making me soo happy.  It was long overdue to get something a little more crisp and streamlined looking, and I absolutely love it.  One of my favorite parts about my new look is the logo.  I had a coworker design it for me in his spare time- I guess that's one of the perks of working in the advertising industry! Tomorrow I'll go more in depth about the meaning behind it.  Keep an eye out for that post, it's actually pretty interesting to learn all of the thought that went into the design.

{four.}
After almost exactly a year of going missing, I finally found my college ring yesterday morning! It had fallen back behind a shelf in my bathroom where I keep my towels.  I guess that shows you how much I dust back there.

{five.}
For once, literally the first time in like two months, T and I have a weekend at home with no plans. I cannot wait to sleep in, go to yoga, lay by the pool, and do whatever else my little heart desires with no agenda to follow.  Ahhhhhh.

Don't forget to follow me on GFC and Bloglovin' y'all.  I am soooo close to getting 100 followers on GFC, and I would love to make it there this weekend.  Happy Friday!

Pecan Crusted Cream Cheese Balls

Every night at dinner I try to serve a salad with our meal, and  I'm always looking for new salad inspirations to jazz up our evening greens. Last night I was making our salad, and wanted to add something new and exciting.  I remembered back to several summers ago when my mom used to make this salad.  The pistachio crusted goat cheese was amazing.

But one slight problem.  No pistachios.  No Goat Cheese.  So off I went scrounging for substitutes.  What I found was half a block of cream cheese and a mason jar full of pecans.  The result was these delicious little balls of cream cheese with crunchy salty pecans on the outside.  They were the perfect addition to our salad. 

Here's the recipe: 

 

Pecan Crusted Cream Cheese Balls

Ingredients:

Finely Chopped Pecans

Cream Cheese

Pinch of Salt

Directions:

Scoop out 1 T of cream cheese from a block for each ball you'd like to make.  Roll each scoop in between your hands until it forms a sphere.  Lay the pecans down on a cutting board, sprinkle with pinch of salt.  Roll each cream cheese ball in the pecans until the outside is completely coated.  Serve on top of a salad.  Great served over spring greens with balsamic vinaigrette.

Tealoha Tea & Eats

I recently tried out Tealoha, a new breakfast and lunch place in Greenville.  If it's name doesn't give it away, Tealoha specializes in teas.  They offer loose leaf teas, hot specialty teas (specialTEAS), iced fruit teas (FruitTEAS), and smoothies with tea (SmoothTEAS).  After several minutes of deliberation, I decided to go for one of their iced teas.  I tried the Carolina Honey Lemon, jasmine green tea shaken with local wild flower honey and fresh squeezed lemon juice. It was really good.  Not too sweet, not too bitter.

For my meal I opted for the Tomato Mozzarella Panini and added a side salad for an additional $2.45.  The sandwich was a great size, perfect for a lunch portion, but I was a bit disappointed with the salad.  It just consisted of a hand full of spring greens with some halved cherry tomatoes on top- the kind of salad you should get for free with your lunch, not for an additional charge.  

The flavors of the sandwich were great.  Bread was warm, crusty on the outside and chewy on the inside.  Lots of mozzarella cheese, which I loved, and a good basil pesto flavor.  The tomatoes inside were a bit anemic looking which surprised me for this time of the year.  I decided to pull them off and substitute them out with the more ripe and red cherry tomatoes from my salad.

The service while I was there was great.  One of the employees came by mid-meal and offered me a sample of one of their new teas, the Snow Flake Latte.  It was coconut flavored black tea with steamed milk and organic sugar cane syrup.   Really tasty, and a good alternative to the afternoon iced coffees I usually opt for. 

One of my favorite parts about my lunch experience at Tealoha was the environment.  I brought my laptop with me (they have free Wi-Fi) and nestled myself down in a booth for my lunch hour.  It's pretty quiet in there and there is a lot of space to spread out.  This fall, I'm looking forward to escaping every once in a while on my lunch break to sit down with a hot tea.  It's the perfect getaway from the chaos of work.

Weekend Recap

 This weekend I went to Pawley's Island for my for my friend Mary Margaret's Bachelorette weekend.  It was so nice to see my college girlfriends, every time we get together we have an absolute blast.  Friday after work we packed up the car and headed to the coast. We arrived late evening and spent the night drinking wine and snacking on appetizers while talking with Mary Margaret about wedding planing, honeymooning, and all that good stuff.

Saturday was a beach day.  I was so happy to get to sneak in another beach day before it gets too cold. And we really lucked up with the weather.  It wasn't too hot, and there was just enough cloud cover every once in a while to prevent us from getting fried. 

For dinner on Saturday night, we went into Murells Inlet to a place called Wahoo's. 

After dinner we hopped in a cab and went to the Hot Fish Club for drinks and dancing.   

We had such a great time celebrating Mary Margaret.  I cannot believe that in just over a month she'll be tying the knot with her love! 



Don't forget to follow me!  I'm so close to getting 100 followers I can taste it.  Please help me get there!

Friday Five

I'm linking up with April, Natasha, Darci, and Christina today for their Friday Five Linkup.  Here are the five things getting me through this Friday. 

{one.} Have any of you heard the song Royals by Lorde?  I heard it for the first time this week and luuurve it.  Think Lana Del Rey meets the chick who sings that Paper Planes song.  If you haven't heard it, I've attached it below.  Not my favorite music video, but I still love the song. Enjoy!

{two.} I was reading Fried Green Pickles earlier this week, and Megan posted some fall fashion inspirations.  One of the outfits had a leopard infinity scarf, and I just loved it.  Megan was sweet enough to send me this link for Express's version, and I purchased it today.  I cannot wait for cooler weather, I think this is going to be my go-to scarf of the season. 

{three.}I love it when a Pinterest idea actually works.  I tried this idea for cutting the corn off the cob when I was making a black bean and corn salad yesterday, and it works like a charm.  I've never baked a single thing in my bundt pan, but at least it works for cutting corn!

{four.} While I am excited for cooler weather and fall time clothing, I do want the warm weather to hold out for just one more Clemson football game so I can wear this dress that I bought from a blog sale this week.  This is my first blog sale purchase.  Christin from The Southern Wife was selling a few things and I just loved the style and colors of this dress.  Hope it fits!

{five.} After work today I'm heading to Pawley's Island to celebrate my friend Mary Margaret.  We're throwing her a bachelorette weekend at the beach, and I cannot wait to party with her and my college girlfriends. Mary Margaret and I were born in the same hospital on the same day, our birth announcements are actually side by side.  We never met until we both went to Clemson and lived in dorm rooms next to one another.  Here's a great picture of the two of us celebrating our 20th birthday together.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Chicken Salad Chick

I recently tried out Chicken Salad Chick for the first time with my girlfriend Maggie.  When we went, they were still relatively new and super packed, so we had to get our food in to-go boxes and wait around until a table opened up.  I'm hoping by now the hype has died down a bit, I don't plan on returning until it does.

Regardless of the seating situation, we had a great lunch.  The entire restaurant is devoted to chicken salad. In fact, they have 15 different kinds of chicken salad.  They also offer soups and alternative sandwiches for those who don't love chicken salad.  But I do love it, a lot, and decided to go for a scoop of the Jazzy Julie (cayenne pepper, bacon and shredded cheddar) with their broccoli salad.  This was part of their Original Chick Special which comes with a sandwich or scoop of chicken salad, side item, and cookie of the day. 

The chicken salad was great.  Very finely shredded just like I like it.  The cayenne added just a bit of heat and the bacon and cheese were great additions. I was also impressed with the broccoli salad.  Most places overdress their broccoli salad, so by the time you get it you've got broccoli swimming in some kind of watery mayonnaisey mess- not too appetizing.  CSC got it right, it was perfectly dressed with the right amount of sweetness and tang.  And to top it off the cookie of the day was Snickerdoodle, which you can never go wrong with.

To be honest with you, I was a little turned off by the name at first.  I thought, "What man in their right mind would go to a place called Chicken Salad Chick?".  But I was shocked at the amount of men in there that day.  Granted, there were definitely more women than men, but it didn't look like the guys were too shy to come in.  They have 8 other locations around the southeast, and they are in the process of opening six more, so apparently the name's not holding them up. 

I would definitely back to CSC soon and try out their other flavors of chicken salad.  Next on my list to try will be the Buffalo Barclay (buffalo chicken salad, duh) or the Fancy Nancy (fuji apples, pecans, and grapes).  If you're in Greenville you should give it a shot!

New Blog Design

As you can see, I got a new blog design!  It was long overdue, and a few weeks ago I finally bit the bullet.  For a while I've admired the blog designs of Erin at Two Thirds Hazel, so when it was time to change things up, I reached out to her to create my new look.  We're still trying to perfect everything at this point, so bear with us. 

Weekend Wrap Up

And its Monday again.  Why do the weekends always fly by?  Once again we had another jam-packed weekend full of football, friends, and watermelon mimosas. Saturday morning T and I headed to Clemson to watch the Clemson v. SC State game.  We stayed through the first half, and then headed back to Greenville.  Once we got back, we went over to the house of our friends Virginia and Matt.  They've got a great back porch area that was perfect for watching more football. We sat around munching on appetizers and watched the Carolina v. UGA game.  Somehow the girls secured the shady couch spots right in front of the TV and the boys were left to stand around and watch.  What gents.

I had been dying to make a batch of watermelon mimosas, but didn't have the opportunity to make them before the football game on Saturday.  So instead, I made a batch to sip on Saturday night.  Typically I don't like drinking mimosas in the afternoon or evening, but this fruity concoction was perfect for porch sittin' and corn hole playing.

 

 Here's how I made them.

Ingredients: 

1/4 of a medium-large watermelon

1 bottle extra dry or brut Champagne 

Puree watermelon in a blender and then run it through a fine strainer.  Or if  you have a juicer, use that. It would have made this process much easier.  Combine two parts champagne and one part watermelon juice.  Optional Step: Add a pinch of salt to the watermelon juice before adding it to your champagne. 

After church on Sunday T and I went over to the Indie Craft Parade at the Hugenot Loft. The Indie Craft parade is a festival celebrating local artisans and food.  The old mill is taken over by booths upon booths of local artists showing off their works. They have everything ranging from custom denim and bowties to jewelry and prints. I heard a good bit about the Indie Craft Parade through social media, but was shocked at the amount of people that were there.  T and I went early enough in the day, so we were able to walk right in.  When we left it was one in one out, and the line was wrapped around the block.

One of my favorite booths that we visited was the Juxtaposition booth.  The owner, Brooke, has an awesome selection of upcycled cast iron pieces and other accessories.  I picked up this gold headless horse bud vase for 7 bucks, and it's already found a home on our table.  Don't you just love it?   This was the only thing I purchased that day, but I picked up business cards from several other booths with awesome things.  Two of my favorites were Overton Iron Works and Spectrum Handcrafted Goods. I love being able to support local businesses, and I love that I live in a town that makes it so easy!

Liebster Award- A Little Bit About Myself

Earlier this week Morgan from Makeshift Margaritas, a great blogger and sorority sister of mine, was sweet enough to nominate me for the Liebster award.  The Liebster award is a great opportunity for bloggers with less than 200 followers to share a little bit about themselves to their readers.  Morgan supplied me with the questions, and here are my answers!

1. Favorite cooking or baking ingredient?

Pancetta- I will try to sneak it into just about any dish.

2. Favorite TV show?

New Girl.  My husband T and I are both obsessed. 

3. Pick one: Pinterest or Instagram?

Instagram, I don't even want to know the amount of times I check my feed each day.

4. Favorite nail polish shade for fall?

 Ulta's Deep Desire.  It's an oxblood color, which was really in last fall.  Hoping it's just as popular this year.

5. Favorite memory from this summer?

 Weekends on the lake with my family.  Although we were plagued with horrible weather this summer, we still managed to get out on the pontoon a couple of times.

6. Thanksgiving or Easter?

Thanksgiving- I'll pick turkey and gravy over ham any day.

7. Dream car?

Probably a Lexus RX 330h or LX 570.  I had an older model in college and loved it.   

8. Favorite kitchen gadget?

Microplane zester/grater.  This thing works wonders.  My citrus juicer falls in a close second place.

9. What's the one makeup item you can't live without?

Under eye concealer.   I've got terrible circles and refuse to leave the house without it.

10. Dream job?

Can I say the one I have now?  I currently work in HR at an advertising agency.  The culture of my office is unbeatable and I love my coworkers.  Getting to help employees out every day is the icing on the cake-  I do the hiring, not the firing :)  If I did have to choose something else I would absolutely love to be a food editor for a local publication.  I live to eat, and I'd love to write about it.

Five On Friday

I can't believe it is already Friday!  I love a short week.  I'm joining April, Darci, Natasha, and Christina today, linking up with them for Five on Friday.  Here are the top five things on my mind this week.

{one.} Fall is approaching, and that means boot weather is almost here.  Spring and summer are my favorite seasons, but the two things that get me excited about cooler weather are boots and scarves.  I bought these boots at the very end of winter last year, and I'm dying to wear them again.  I only got to sport them a handful of times last year before the weather got too warm. 

{two.} I've been doing my best to cut out carbs during the week for lunches, but I'm sick of salads.  This week I changed it up a bit with a lettuce-less salad.  This Greek salad  has garbanzo beans (chickpeas), cucumbers, red onion, kalamatas, pepperoncini, feta, and grilled chicken.  I dressed it with a simple red wine vinaigrette, and it was great! 

{three.} A dueling piano bar, Jack n' Dianne's, opened in Greenville a couple months ago and I've been dying to go.  T and I haven't had a weekend in town in a while, but this week we finally got to try it out.  We had a blast on Wednesday night with our friends sipping on drinks and singing along with the piano players. 

 {four.}  What more appropriate for my number four than to brag that my alma mater's football team is number four in the country! This is the best ranking we've had in 25 years, and  I couldn't be more proud of my Tigers.  We played a hard game last Saturday and beat Georgia.  I have a feeling this season is going to be awesome.  Go tigers!

 {five.} Last weekend one of my girlfriends made watermelon mimosas for tailgating.  If you read last Friday's post, you already know I love a mimosa, and these were a great twist on the original.  All you do is puree a watermelon, strain it, and serve over bubbly.  They taste so fresh and not too sweet.  Think I'll be making these to sip on this Saturday.

Have a wonderful weekend!