Chicken piccata may sound like a fancy dish but it's rather easy to prepare and will impress your friends. It consists of chicken breasts in a lemony butter sauce, with capers. Capers are a pickled, salty, flower bud that are sold in a small jar in most supermarkets in the US, on the pickle aisle. I made this dish for a friend's birthday based on a recipe from the Food Network (click here for the recipe). I substituted four already thinly sliced chicken breasts, which saved a little work because I did not have to butterfly the chicken breasts as called for in the recipe. I paired it with a simple chopped salad with red wine vinagarette, and a very easy to make zucchini and pasta toss.
I tried a new desert, a ricotta cheese with honey, cocoa powder, and fresh raspberries, eaten with chocolate biscotti. Very easy to prepare but I didn't like the ricotta cheese as a desert. Perhaps it would be better with mascarpone.
All in all, it took maybe 45 minutes to prepare the meal and I think my friends appreciated that I made the effort to cook rather than just making dinner reservations.
