Pasta with Chicken Breast, Zucchini and Tomatoes

I never knew what I was getting into when I planted 3 tiny zucchini plants last May. As recommended by GardenWeb members I have planted 3 seedlings on top of mound that was around 8” in diameter and 3“ high. Now it occupies area about 3 X 6 feet! And are they ever prolific! I had to find all kinds of uses for this great summer squash and one of our favorite ones is wide pasta noodles with sautéed onions, garlic, zucchini and tomatoes. Very quick and light summer meal.

Ingredients

1 small chicken breast cut into thin strips

1/2 small onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 small zucchini, cut in half lengthwise and sliced 1/4” thin

2 medium tomatoes, chopped

1 Tbs. Olive oil

1 Tbs. Balsamic vinegar

1 Tbs. maple syrup

2 Tbs. chopped fresh basil or parsley

Salt and pepper

Wide noodles, penne or fettuccine
1tbs butter

Directions

Cook pasta according to package instructions, drain and toss with butter and keep warm. While the pasta is cooking heat olive oil in frying pan and sauté chicken breast pieces that were seasoned with salt and pepper for about 10 minutes or until light golden brown on all sides. Add onions, garlic, zucchini and tomatoes and cook until soft, about 10 minutes. Season with balsamic vinegar, pinch of salt and pepper. Drop cooked pasta into frying pan with sauce and toss till pasta is well coated with the sauce. Garnish with chopped parsley or fresh basil and serve.

Chicken Breast with Vegetables and Noodles

After all the comfort food that I have cooked over the Christmas it was about time to come up with something light. I had some vegies left over from our traditional Friday night thin crust veggie pizza and a chicken breast so I had lot of choices as to how to prepare it. In the end I settled on sort of sauté with wide egg noodles. I had parts of white onion, zucchini, red and green peppers, cremini mushrooms and Roma tomatoes, excellent base for a sauce. At the end just before plating I stirred in a bit of balsamic vinegar and large pinch of dried basil (from my garden). Freshly grated Parmigiano and sprinkle of chopped parsley on top finished the plate.

 

Ingredients

1-1/2 cups of julienned red and green peppers and zucchini

1-1/2 cups sliced mushrooms and onions

1 cup chopped Roma tomatoes

1 chicken breast cut into strips and tossed with salt, pepper, hot pepper flakes and olive oil

1/2 cup Marsala wine

1 Tbs. Balsamic vinegar

1 tsp. dry basil

Spread the chicken breast strips in hot non-stick frying pan and cook for about 3 minutes on each side. Remove to preheated bowl or plate and place into 250 °F toaster oven. Cook noodles, toss in butter and keep warm.

 In same frying pan add 1 Tbs. of olive oil and sauté mushrooms and onions until lightly colored, about 5 minutes.

 Add julienned zucchini, peppers and tomatoes, stir and cook for 5 minutes, covered. Remove cover and stir in Marsala. Cook uncovered until the sauce thickens. Stir in balsamic vinegar and basil.  

Mix in previously cooked noodles and toss so that all the noodles are coated with sauce. Serve on preheated plates or shallow bowls, place chicken strips on top and sprinkle with cheese and chopped parsley.

Chicken Breast Roll with Mozzarella and Herbs

This chicken breast roll can be served hot with buttered noodles and tomato sauce or at room temperature thinly sliced and served with crusty bread. Either way it is a great meal for all seasons. I used mozzarella for stuffing but any melting cheese or even blue cheese or combination of both is great. Use of thermometer is almost a must since chicken breast dries very quickly, you don’t want to go over 160 °F. Remember that breast will keep cooking after being removed from oven. As far as seasonings goes, again, it is up to you. Touch of heat is always nice in any meat roll, I usually use chilies pepper flakes and freshly ground white pepper.

Ingredients

2 large boneless and skinless chicken breasts

1 cup grated cheese

1 tsp. Herbes de Provence

1/2 tsp. pepper flakes

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Directions

Butterfly and pound the chicken breast into 1/4” thick cutlet. (Video that shows the process is attached.)

Preheat oven to 350 °F and place the rack in middle of oven.

Season the cutlet with herbs, salt and pepper and evenly spread the cheese on top stopping about 1” from edges and top. Start rolling away from you making sure that roll is tight. With one full turn left fold over the sides to enclose the roll and finish the roll. Secure the roll by tying loops with butcher twine at 2” intervals. Preheat non-stick frying pan with 2 Tbs. of olive oil on medium high and brown the rolls on all sides. Place the pan in oven and roast until thermometer reaches 155 °F, about 25 minutes. When done, remove from oven and rest for few minutes then cut slice s 1/2” thick. Serve with buttered noodles and tomato sauce.

Perciati with Chicken Tenders & Mushrooms

Another meal that I had to come up with just because I had to work with what I had on hand (pantry, refrigerator and freezer) because neither I nor Marjo felt like going to the store. Previous day I bought beautiful cremini mushrooms that were on special so that was my base. What with? I remembered chicken tenders that I vacuum packed and froze last week and that was a good start. Side had to be pasta but I have so many kinds and shapes that choosing wasn’t all that easy. Fettuccini, linguini or even small penne would work but I have decided to try something new, like perciati that I bought in Italian supermarket few months ago but never found a recipe to go with them. Perciati is a hollow long pasta, sort of like a thick spaghetti tube. When dry the hole is very small but once cooked it triples in size. The texture is fantastic. The problem is that only place you can buy it, I think, is in Italian delicatessen or market.

So far I had pasta, meat and mushrooms. Shallots, garlic and celery are natural with mushrooms so they made the list. Next came the sauce and since I didn’t want regular tomato based sauce I went with white wine and cream sauce flavored with roasted red pepper paste. That was the plan. Everything went smoothly until I added the pepper paste and realising that instead of sweet red pepper paste I used Harissa paste. Good thing I used only about 1/2 tsp. or Marjo wouldn’t be able to eat it, it is that hot. It is of Tunisian origin and main ingredient is bird’s eye chilli peppers and Serrano peppers so little bit goes a long way

Ingredients

1/2 lb. Perciati

1/2 cup chicken tenders or breast, cut into 1” pieces

1/2 small onion, diced

1 stalk celery, chopped

1-1/2 cup sliced cremini or white mushrooms

1/2 tsp. Harissa paste or 1 Tbs. pimento paste

1/3 cup white wine

1/3 cup 35% cream

Olive oil, salt, pepper

Process

Cook pasta according to instruction on package and keep warm.

Toss chicken with little bit of olive oil, salt and pepper.

Heat up non-stick frying pan with 1 tsp. of olive oil and cook chicken for 1 minute on each side. Remove chicken to preheated bowl, cover and keep warm. Sauté onions for 2 minutes, add celery and mushrooms, mix and cook undisturbed for about 3 minutes or till mushrooms start releasing their juices. Flip mushrooms over and cook another 3 minutes. Add wine and reduce until there is just a coating on bottom of frying pan. Reduce heat to medium high and stir in cream. When cream starts to thicken return chicken to frying pan and reheat. Return pasta to frying pan, toss to reheat and serve on preheated serving plate or bowl and topped with freshly grated Parmigiano Regiano on top.

Note: CHOW.com posted video on new way to cook pasta. It is incredibly simple and it works! Check my post on this method.

Chicken and Polenta Soup Balls

As I mentioned on my “Baked Pimento Pepper Halves” post, I made these dumplings using minced chicken and polenta instead of usual matzo meal or bread crumbs. It was an experiment that turned out better than I had expected. It started quite innocently with polenta experiment. I had an e-mail thread going with my favorite nephew Seb about cooking polenta. I wanted to know if it can be cooked in microwave. I took 1/2 cup of chicken stock and nuked it for 45 seconds on 100% power, then mixed in 1/4 cup fine ground corn and cooked another 45 seconds on 75% power, uncovered. And, what do you know; it had a decent texture and tasted cooked, it was actually pretty good even though it was on a dry side. I left it on my kitchen island and started to prepare new chicken-on-skewers recipe from Cooks Illustrated where chicken breast is kept moist by coating it with bacon paste made in mini-chopper. I made the paste with 2 cloves of garlic and then I changed my mind about the skewers, there just wasn’t enough meat for two people. Eureka! Chicken dumplings for a soup!
I cut up the breast into small pieces and then minced it in mini chopper together with 1 egg, 1/2 tsp. of salt, 2 Tbs. of chopped garlic chives, 1/2 tsp. marjoram, 1/2 tsp. baking powder and 1/2 tsp. of white pepper. Then I mixed in the polenta, formed it into 1-1/2” balls and slowly simmered in salted water for 15 minutes. They came out nice and fluffy (baking powder J).
These are now my favorite dumplings for a chicken noodle soup.

Baked Pimento Pepper Halves

Stuffed with Minced Chicken Breast

While rummaging in my freezer I came across vacuum packed chicken breast. Just one chicken breast is not enough to feed 2 people unless I use it in stir fry or with risotto or lots of pasta. None of these options appealed to me, I just had to come up with something that I haven’t done before. Last week I made soup dumplings using minced chicken breast, egg and polenta (!) instead of bread crumbs so I figured I could follow same process. Then I remembered one of our favorite dim-sums: fried and steamed green pepper halves stuffed with ground pork! I have a lot of red pimento peppers in my veggie garden (that I grew from seeds J) so I have decided to use them. They are just perfect size for quick bake, about 2” wide and 4” long. Problem: chicken breast is the leanest meat on the planet and because of that I will have to add some good fat. I figured since everybody (among normal people) loves bacon, why not take couple slices of bacon, chop it and then pulverize it in mini-chopper to add some taste and moisture. New recipe was done, at least in my head.

 Ingredients

1 chicken breast (1 halve), cut into 1” cubes

1 clove garlic

1/2 tsp. salt

2 slices smoked bacon, roughly chopped

1/2 cup toasted bread crumbs

1 egg, beaten

1/4 cup milk

1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

1 tsp. Hungarian paprika

1/4 tsp. dried thyme

1/4 tsp. dried marjoram

1 Tbs. chopped garlic chives or French chives

6 small red peppers

Oil for initial frying

Process

Wash and dry peppers and cut off excess stem.

Split in half lengthwise, remove seeds, white ribs and cut across the stem and as close as possible to pepper wall. You should have only small green knob left.

Place garlic and bacon in a mini-chopper or food processor and process until bacon has a paste consistency.

Scrape the sides of processor bowl and add chicken and pulse until chicken is well minced.

Place bread crumbs, paprika, salt, thyme, marjoram and chives into mixing bowl and mix until well combined.

Mix beaten egg with milk and pour in bread crumb mixture and mix. The crumbs should form small pellets.

Mix the chicken mince with bread crumbs and mix until mixture is well combined and smooth. You should be able to form a ball that holds its shape. Adjust the consistency if needed by adding more milk if dry or more bread crumbs if too runny.

Take a teaspoon of the mixture, make a small pate and fry in little oil to test for seasoning, mainly if it is salty enough since bacon differs a lot in how salty the slices are. Adjust if needed.

With spoon, stuff the peppers with mixture, pressing the meat in all corners and stuffing it a little bit higher than the rim of the pepper. It should have a little mound above the rim.

Preheat oven to 400 °F and place rack in middle.

Heat about 1/2 cup of oil in small frying pan and shallow fry meat side of pepper till golden, about 20 – 30 seconds. Fry only 2 halves at the time, they are very slippery and hard to handle. When seared remove peppers with tongues to plate lined with paper towel. Repeat for rest of peppers.

Place peppers meat side up on a wire or roasting rack and place the rack on baking sheet. (I used my BBQ grill so I’ve omitted the baking sheet and roasted them on warming rack that is higher than cooking grill.)

Bake for 20 minutes.

To Serve

Only you imagination will direct you in how many ways you can serve these stuffed peppers. Simplest one, and the one I used when I served them freshly baked, is just as it is: on a bed of lettuce or arugula with a baguette toast rubbed with garlic and fresh tomatoes. Other suggestion are that you can cut the peppers across into 1 inch slices and put them on top of toasted baguette slices…or serve them in a hot tomato sauce with, you guessed it, garlic rubbed and toasted baguette slices. This was today’s reincarnation of this great meal. Hmmm, it looks like we do like toasted baguette slices rubbed with my very own hard neck garlic. I have to agree, we do. It makes a great base for almost any toppings.

Peppers are ready for initial browning.

Caramelized and ready for baking.

Burners on right and left were on full and two center ones were on low.

  Ready for any way you want to serve them.

Italian Style Stir Fried Chicken Breast

This is my version of typically Italian pasta dish eaten with chopsticks. Yes, very weird but tasty and practical.

We just love wide egg noodles, especially the short twisted ones, but they are so difficult to eat with knife and fork so now we always use chopsticks and since there is no knife with table setting all ingredients have to be cut into bite sized pieces. It is that simple, just like any Chinese stir fry. I used chunky and thick tomato sauce with chopped zucchini, onions, garlic and roasted peppers.

First, cook noodles of your choice, drain and toss with little butter and olive oil. Set aside and keep warm.

While the noodles are boiling heat up non-stick skillet, add little olive oil and stir fry chicken breast that was cut into small, bite sized strips, together with julienned zucchini, sliced onion and sliced cremini mushrooms. At same time add the sauce, mix and cook till chicken is done, about 2 minutes.

Serve noodles on preheated plate, top with chicken, sauce and veggies.

That’s it. If you have a sauce ready it takes well under half an hour total.