Easy Lemon Cookies

The Workshop has maintained an Anti Rachel Ray stance for sometime. This cooker feels that she misrepresents her 30 minute meals and her $40 a day show is a detriment to servers and restaurants everywhere. Next time you watch $40 a day, look at how much free stuff she gets, how many "budget friendly" specials happen to be featured that day and she is the worst tipper ever. Stepping down from the soap box. Her magazine does have a good staff of writers and bakers it seems though. Mrs. Cooker found a simple lemon cookie recipe that is actually good. Clearly the Workshop has mixed emotions about the whole thing. However, with the exaltation of lemons in mind, the Lemon Cookie. This cookie is nicely crunchy with a pronounced lemon flavor and a nice sweetness to balance the acid of the lemon juice. The ingredient list is taken directly from the Rachel Ray website but the directions are pure Workshop.

Admit it, you have never seen baking goods look so ominous

Freshly "grated" lemon zest is crucial to the lemoniness of these cookies

The cookie dough in an arty shot

You might notice that these hands are far too delicate to be those of the Workshop Cooker. Those beautiful fingers belong to Mrs. Cooker, who made these cookies

Sugared and ready to go into the oven

Fresh out the oven and ready for consumption

General notes:
Prep Time: 25 min and 15 min baking time
Servings: 2 -3 dozen depending on how big you make them
General Notes:

Ingredients:
1 Stick Unsalted Butter, chilled
1 1/4 cups Sugar
Grated Zest of 2 lemons
1 tbsp Lemon Juice
1 Large Egg
1 1/2 Cups AP Flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon table salt

Equipment:
Mixing bowls
Stand mixer or hand mixer
Microplane grater or cheese grater
Measuring Cups
Cookie Sheets
Parchment paper or Pam, paper preferred
Oven set preheated to 350 degrees

Written Instructions:

• Preheat the oven, line the cookie sheets with parchment, put a quarter cup of the sugar into a small bowl, get your stuff together in general
  
• Combine 1 cup of the sugar, the lemon zest, and the lemon juice in the stand mixer bowl and beat until fluffy.
• Add the egg and mix until it is incorporated
• Add the flour, baking soda and salt and mix until just combined.
• Spoon out about a tablespoon of the dough into your fingers and roll into a ball.
• Drop the ball into the bowl that has the remaining sugar and coat the ball with sugar
• Put the ball onto the cookie sheet, evenly spaced out
• Continue until you are out of dough or cookie sheet space
• Bake'um up for 12 to 15 minutes, they should have browned edges like cookies
• Remove from the oven and set aside to cool
• Remove from pan and cool somewhere
• Make it happen in your tum tum
  

Chicken Piccata (Chicken with a Lemony Butter Sauce)

There is a good reason why some dishes have become classics. Piccata is considered more of a preparation than a dish unto itself, and most places try to sell you Veal Piccata. This is no place for those kind of discussions but Veal will never be prepared in this Workshop. Piccata is scallapiones of some sort, dredged in flour and fried up with a lemony butter sauce. It will always be the practice of this Workshop to jazz things up a little bit when possible. So this dish has the chicken sauteed and paired with a sauce made from garlic, lemon juice, lemon slices, vegetable broth, white wine, and capers. The sauce gives you a nice buttery kind of feeling with a little acid to cut it and a few goodies to peak your interest. Note: be careful when adding the capers, if they are packed in vinegar they are going to take your acid levels through the roof.

The Starting Line Up

Chicken in a bag about to get whacked

WHACK!

Sorry ladies, the Workshop cooker is in fact married

Nicely browned on one side and going for the second

The sauce simmering away, notice the lemon slices

Chicken Piccata with Angel Hair

General Notes:
Prep Time: 15 - 20 minutes depending on how fast you can flatten a piece of chicken
Servings: recipe is for 2 butcan be expanded easily
Notes: Taste the sauce before you "finish" if you are not careful you can make it feel like a Warhead. There are a lot of ranges in the ingredients as there are a lot of variables to adjust. You will have to adjust it to your taste.

Ingredients:
2 Chicken Cutlets, pounded flat
1/2 cup to 1 cup Vegetable or Chicken Broth
1/2 cup White Wine, good enough to drink but do not spend more than $3
2 -4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup - 1 cup flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
Capers to taste, rinsed (some are packed in vinegar, some packed in salty brine. PAY ATTENTION TO THIS AS IT WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE. it does not matter which just keep it in mind while making the sauce)
1/2 lemon sliced thin
juice of 1/2 a lemon
Olive Oil as needed
Kosher Salt and Black Pepper to taste

Equipment:
Knife
Cutting Board
Plastic bag, or wax paper
Something heavy and flat that will not break or bend, either a meat hammer or fry pan
plate for dredging the flour
fry pan big enough to hold the chicken breasts, you can also do it stages if you do not have one

Written Instructions:

• Place the chicken cutlet between two pices of wax paper or in a ziploc bag and smack it with your blunt object until they have flattened out a bit more. The goal is to make them flat and even. Start at the edges and smack in an outward motion to almost stretch the chicken breast out to the egdes. Repeat until all the cutlets are flattened.
  
• Dredge the chicken breasts through the seasoned flour until they are evenly coated. shake off the excess.
• Pour some Olive Oil into a pan that has been heating over Medium heat. Carefully add the chicken so that it lies in one layer across the bottom. Pan fry for 3 or 4 minutes until the first side is browned. Repeat on second side and remove from pan and set aside somewhere to keep warm.
• Add the butter to the pan, quickly swirling and add the garlic. Cook for 30 seconds.
  
• Deglaze the pan with the white wine, using a rubber scraper or wooden spoon to scrape up the browned bits stuck to the bottom of the pan.
• Add the vegetable broth, butter, and lemon slices.
• Add a few capers and taste the sauce to check the acidity level. If the sace seems to acidic add some butter or a pinch of sugar or something sweet.
• Add as many capers as you like being careful not to make the sauce too acidic.
• Add the chicken back to the pan, and baste with the sauce. Ensure that the chicken feels firm to the touch(cooked) and that if pricked the juices run clear.
• Serve with Angel hair pasta, or mashed Potatoes, or something starchy.
• Make it happen in your tum tum