Chicken Piccata Pasta Toss

This is a Rachael Ray recipe, from her "30 Minute Meals 2" book. When 30 Minute Meals first aired on Food Network, I was all over it. Loved the concept! However, actually making the meals in 30 minutes was impossible. Even before the kids were born I'd spend up to an hour making a supposed 30 minute meal. Boo. I'm not really a fan anymore, but this recipe seems to be a crowd-pleaser. Don't worry, you won't be slaving away in the kitchen for an hour making this!

Serves 4

1 lb. penne rigate pasta, cooked al dente
2 tbls. olive oil
1 1/4 lbs. chicken tenders cut into 1-inch pieces
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tbls butter
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 medium shallots, chopped
2 tbls. flour
1/2 c white wine
Juice of 1 lemon
1 c chicken broth or stock
3 tbls. capers, drained
1/2 c chopped flat-leaf parsely
chopped/snipped chives, for garnish

Heat a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 tbls olive oil and the chicken to the pan. Season with salt and pepper, and brown until lightly golden all over, 5-6 minutes. Remove chicken from the pan and set aside. Reduce skillet heat to medium, add another tbls olive oil and 1 tbls butter. Add the garlic and shallots; saute 3 minutes. Whisk in flour and cook for 2 minutes. Whisk in wine and reduce liquid, about 1 minute. Whisk lemon juice and broth into sauce. Stir in capers and parsley . When sauce comes to a bubble, add remaining butter to give sauce a little shine. Put chicken back in the pan and heat through a minute or two. Toss hot pasta with chicken and sauce. Adjust seasonings as needed, sprinkle with chives to serve.

I am horrible about buying herbs, so the dish is parsley-less...and chive-less for that matter.

I have also baked up the chicken in the oven before making the sauce. Meh. You don't get the yummy chicken flavor in the sauce when you do this, since there's nothing to deglaze in the pan.

I used chicken breast halves as opposed to tenders. You could also cook the breast halves (or tenders) whole. I do recommend using a pasta with lines, however, as the sauce clings to the pasta better.

Rather have the wine in your glass than in your dish? You can use 1/2 c chicken stock instead. However, every time I've used stock instead the sauce didn't thicken up like it did when I use wine.

The capers really add a wonderful flavor to the sauce...you know how sometimes you can fudge your way through a recipe if you don't have 1 of the ingredients? Capers really aren't one of those ingredients you can omit, I think.

All-American Chili Chowder

The calendar says chili and soup weather is here!!! While the last couple days have been soup and chili weather, we're expected to have warmer weather again by this weekend. Sigh. This is from All You Magazine from a while back. All this time I didn't realize it's supposed to be a chowder.

Serves 12 (yep! It freezes well so I like to make a full batch and freeze the rest for another day.)

2 Tblsp olive oil
3 medium-size onions, diced
2 lbs. lean ground turkey
2 28 oz. cans diced tomatoes
2 15 1/2 oz, cans red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 28 oz. can baked beans
8 oz. tomato sauce
4 c frozen corn, thawed
1/4 c chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
tortilla chips, optional

Heat olive oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook onions for 10 mins., stirring occasionally, until nicely browned. Crumble in turkey, cook 8-10 mins till turkey cooks through.

Place turkey mixture in a 6 qt. slow coooker. Stir in diced tomatoes, kidney beans, baked beans, tomato sauce, corn, chili powder, salt and pepper. Cook 4 hours on high or 7 hours on low. Serve with tortilla chips, if desired.

All this food doesn't fit in my slow cooker. I never paid attention to how big mine is until I made this for the first time. I now know I have a 4 quart slow cooker. If I were to halve the recipe I can throw it in my slow cooker, but for a full batch I cook it on the stovetop for a few hours over low heat, stirring occasionally.

This time I used 2 pretty good size onions instead of the 3 called for. I used 3 pounds of meat, an extra 15 oz. can of kidney beans, and a lot more than 4 cups of corn (I admit I didn't measure them), but kept the amount of the remaining ingedients the same. Also, I threw the salt, pepper, and chile powder in when the meat was browning up instead of later. I also added about a tablespoon of ancho chile powder at the very end, which is a very mild chile.