Spring Mood Recipes

Spring is here and it is about time for nice, warm days and… spring mood recipes!

It is also a great reason to change your food habits. Easy salads and slow-cooked meals replace hot soups, while spring desserts take over rich cakes. Ah, such an amazing time ahead!

New recipes are a good start for a new season. Delicious meals with fresh vegetables (and fruits) are a perfect source of vitamins and are extremely nutritious, improving health and boosting confidence. Changing just a few herbs and spices will get you absolutely different flavors of your daily meals and will eagerly inspire you to try something new and creative.

Tarts are fabulous because of the easy preparation and tremendous looks. All you need to do is fill puff or shortcut pastry tarts with green and violet asparagus, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and goat cheese, and simply fan-bake them.

Crockpot dishes are an amazing choice for this spring, too, but make sure you have appropriate spices and herbs for chicken, beef and fish. Lemons and lime are a must-have because you can add them to most of your meals.

If you are hosting and setting up a dessert table, consider serving vanilla affogato. It is a very simple dessert – all you need is plenty of juice cups or whisky glasses to fill with toppings: caramel and sea salt, chopped peanuts and pistachios, crushed hard candies, sprinkles, cookies or orange pieces. But don’t stop your imagination there.

You can also add different scoops of ice cream. Vanilla is a perfect match, but experiment with chocolate, strawberry, hazelnut, caramel and other flavors. It is time to enjoy them all!

Find more delicious recipes on HelenaRecipes.com.

Lemon Butter Chicken

Ingredients

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
3 tbl. butter, divided
4 garlic cloves
8 fl. oz. chicken stock
8 fl. oz. heavy cream
2 fl. oz. white dry wine
3 tbl. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
2 chopped parsley sprigs
2 oz. washed baby spinach
Salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste

Steps

Preheat oven to 380° F.
Season the chicken lightly with salt and pepper. Set aside for 3-5 minutes.
Heat the butter in a large, heavy pan.
Add the chicken and fry until light brown.
Transfer the chicken to a Rockcrok or cast-iron skillet, add chicken stock, heavy cream, white dry wine, dried thyme, spinach, salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Then mix everything.
Place the Rockcrok in the oven and cook for about 45 minutes.
Remove the dish from the oven, add lemon juice to taste and let it sit for about 5 minutes before serving.
Decorate with lemon pieces and parsley.