Two for Tuesday
Tonight we had whole wheat fettucini with chicken, mushrooms and pesto cream sauce. I LOVE pesto. What's not to love about fresh basil, cheese, garlic and pine nuts?! I never measure it when I make it but I tried to this time, so I could write it down.
Chicken
1 chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
salt and pepper
Italian seasoning
olive oil
Season chicken with salt, pepper and Italian seasoning. Heat oil in a pan. Add chicken and cook through.
Pesto
3 tbsp toasted pine nuts (I usually toast an extra tbsp to put over the top of the pasta)
3 cloves garlic (I love garlic, feel free to use less)
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1 cup fresh basil
1-2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, or as needed
salt to taste
To toast the pine nuts, just place them in a hot, dry pan over medium heat. Keep an eye on them so they don't burn. Flip them around once or twice. It will only take a couple minutes. You'll know they're done because they'll have darkened up a bit, and you can smell them.
In a food processor, pulse toasted pine nuts and garlic until combined. Add in basil and process. Add parm and--you guessed it--process until combined.
Add olive oil in a steady stream while continuing to process, to desired consistency. Salt to taste. Leave pesto mixture in processor until ready to use.
Mushrooms/cream
1 tbsp butter
1/2 lb. fresh sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup half and half (or cream)
salt and pepper to taste
Heat butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Add mushrooms and cook until tender. Add half and half and bring just to scalding (don't boil it), let it thicken a couple minutes.
Add about half of the liquid to the food processor with the pesto. Pulse process for just a few seconds until well combined. Pour pesto-cream mixture back into mushroom-cream mixture. Warm through. Toss with pasta and chicken. Top with leftover pine nuts and parmesan cheese if desired.
And yesterday we had Italian wedding soup.
Again, I tried to write down ingredients.
Meatballs
1/2 lb. ground beef
1/2 small onion, grated
2 tbsp. grated parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp bread crumbs
1/2 tablespoon fresh basil
3/4 tsp dried parsley (obviously you could use about 2T fresh but I didn't have any on hand)
1 egg white
Combine all ingredients and make into 1/2" meatballs. Simple enough, huh? I usually refrigerate mine for a couple hours or up to a day to meld the flavors/firm them up a bit.
Soup
2 tbsp butter
1 small onion, diced
1/2 cup sliced carrots
1/2 cup sliced celery
1 clove minced garlic
2 sprigs of fresh thyme (leaves)
8 cups chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste
3/4 cup acini di pepi or other small pasta
8 oz. fresh spinach or escarole or curly endive or........
Melt butter in stockpot. Add onion, celery, carrots, garlic and thyme, and cook until veggies get tender, but not too soft.
Add chicken broth and bring to a boil. Turn heat down a bit and simmer about 20-30 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Drop in meatballs and cook about 5 minutes before dropping in acini di pepi. Cook about 6 more minutes before adding spinach. Cook spinach 2-3 minutes.
Apparently it is really hard to take a picture of soup when it is still steaming hot.
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