Tag Archives: pasta

Once upon a midnight dreary…

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Poetic license here, it was 12:00pm (noon) not midnight. It was sunny and warm, nor dreary. Otherwise the title was spot on. I saw this recipe for Chicken Pasta Primavera and thought it would make a nice, easy dinner. As is often the case, I was only mostly right. I made a couple of baguettes over the weekend and thought they would be good for garlic toast. We has a frozen chicken breast left over from a dinner last week and we had some peppers (some from my garden)… perfect!

(Not my photo)

The chicken was neither boneless or skinless, but that was easily rectified. I also butterflied it to reduce the time required to cook it in the skillet.

Baguettes are easy to make with or without a bread machine. I use our machine for ease and consistency. Set the menu to dough so it does the work of kneading and the first rise. When it finishes its cycles remove it from the machine, punch it down, divide it into two balls and put on a slightly greased cookie sheet, covered with a kitchen towel and placed in the oven with the light on. This makes a nice, warm, draft free place to let the dough rise again. After it doubles roll each ball into a rope as long as your baguette pan, dust with corn meal and let rise again until doubled. When ready place in pre-heated oven at 375 degrees for 20 – 25 min. Spray with water, brush with egg white or as I did, but a pan of water in the oven will make the bread nice and crusty.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup warm water (110 degrees F.)
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 3 cups bread flour
  • 3 teaspoons Instant Active Dry Yeast
  • Cornmeal (optional)

Chicken Pasta Primavera recipe

Ingredients

  • 1/2 red bell pepper, cut into 1 inch pieces
  • 1/2 green bell pepper, cut into 1 inch pieces
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 (14.5 ounce) can peeled and diced tomatoes
  • 1 pound angel hair pasta
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves – cut into bite size pieces
  • dried basil
  • dried rosemary
  • dried thyme
  • garlic powder
  • grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

  1. In a large skillet over medium heat, cook red and green bell peppers in 2 tablespoons olive oil with garlic until just tender. Stir in diced tomatoes, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer 10 minutes. Reduce heat to keep sauce warm.
  2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain.
  3. While pasta is cooking, heat 2 tablespoons oil and butter over medium heat in a large skillet. Cook chicken in butter mixture until juices run clear, 5 to 10 minutes. Place cooked chicken over tomato sauce and sprinkle with basil, rosemary, thyme, garlic powder and Parmesan. Serve with cooked pasta.

And Fran said “Let’s just have bread for dinner!”

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NOT IN MY HOUSE!! I had some chicken cutlets, plum tomatoes, but no garlic bread 😦

Making a couple of loaves of baguettes doesn’t take very long, however, without a baguette pan the loaves tend to flatten. Instead I just made them in bread pans and cut them on a diagonal. Not perfect, but not bad.

The chicken parm was nothing special beyond delicious. a 14oz can of crushed tomatoes, one cup fresh, peeled, diced, plum tomatoes, about 1/4 cup EVO, one clove of garlic, cut into thin slices, 1 teaspoon of salt, one sprig of fresh basil.

Heat the oil and garlic together. When the garlic turns pale gold, add the tomatoes, salt, and basil and mix. Let it cook until it has reduced to the thickness you like. Put the chicken in some type of roasting vessel (I use my au gratin’s), cover with the marinara sauce, sliced mozzarella, torn basil leaves and slices of fresh tomato. Bake at 350 for about 30 min. I cannot abide under cooked chicken so usually cook for 35 – 40 min. For the last 5 min use the broiler to be sure everything is browning.

Also, the home made garlic bread (2 teaspoons mayonnaise and 1/8 cup of garlic powder spread over the bread and broiled until just browning, 3-5 min) is cooked at the same time as the last 5 min of the chick parm.