62. September 19th, 2010 Picture.

My friends Bill and Tara are expecting a little boy in October (at press time, the baby is currently 1 month old, I know, I’m SO behind).  Tara has been working a lot and mentioned to our friend Kim that her and Bill had been ordering lots of take out because they were just too tired at the end of the day to cook anything.  Kim came up with a great idea of hosting a cooking club meeting at her apartment, so we could all make different meals to stock B & T’s fridge and freezer until little baby Liam arrived.  I thought this was just the greatest idea and was so happy to be involved.  We made plans for Sunday afternoon, everyone arriving around 2pm, to allow time for us to cook and still be able to watch the Pats game that started that afternoon (obviously we are great friends, but we have priorities!)  I scoured FoodNetwork.com, trying to find a nice recipe that didn’t involve too much physical labor as well as ingredients, and decided on making Giada’s chicken piccata.  There were all of 5 ingredients, chicken, chicken stock, capers, lemons and pasta, so I knew I could handle it. 

I brought all my items over to Kim’s house, along with some chips and dip for the game, and got to cooking.  Jamie was making meatballs and sauce, Mark was making sausage lasagna, Kim was making chicken pot pie, filling for sloppy joe’s and an apple tart, while I was make chicken piccata.  Seriously there was so much awesome food in that kitchen, it was really hard for us all not to stuff our faces.  Thankfully we all brought some snacks for the game, so we were able to nibble on that instead.  Kim’s boyfriend Chris even set up a TV in the kitchen so us football fans, Me and Mark, wouldn’t miss a second of the game.  Here's a picture of my first attempt at chicken piccata.

I have to say, that once everything was done, it was AMAZING.  It was SO easy and so delicious, it definitely needs to become a staple of my repertoire.  It is really funny, because I actually uploaded a picture of this up onto Facebook earlier in the day, and when we went over to T & B’s house to drop of all the goodies, Tara told me she saw the picture and was going to ask me for the recipe. 

Once our food was done, or at least in the oven, we settled in to watch the Pats vs. Jets game, which I was so excited about.  That excitement quickly turned to disgust when we started to lose, and with 3 minutes left in the game, we all threw in the towel and packed up our things to go surprise Tara and Bill.  They had no idea we were doing any of this, so when Mark said he wanted to stop by, you can imagine how shocked they were when 4 of us walked in.  They were so appreciative and thankful for all the food, and probably a little overwhelmed.  We gave them A LOT of food, enough to get them through the rest of the pregnancy and probably once Liam arrived – thank goodness they have an extra fridge in the basement, they’re totally gonna need it!

{Mark carrying our care package.}

{All the yummy stuff we made!}