EVERYTHING BUT THAT!

This recipe was taken from America’s Test Kitchen.

Ingre­di­ents:

• 2 bone­less, skin­less chicken breasts (about 3/4 pound), cut cross­wise into 1/4-inch-thick slices
• salt and pepper
• 2 table­spoons unsalted butter
• 2 gar­lic cloves, minced
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 2 tea­spoons grated zest and 3 table­spoons juice from 2 lemons
• 1 pound far­falle or penne
• 1 (6-ounce) bag baby spinach
• 1/2 cup grated Parme­san cheese
• 1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted (see note)

Direc­tions:

1. Bring 4 quarts water to boil in large pot.  Pat chicken dry with paper tow­els and sea­son with salt and pep­per.  Melt 1 table­spoon but­ter in skil­let over medium-high heat.  Cook half of chicken until no longer pink, about 3 min­utes; trans­fer to plate.  Repeat with remain­ing but­ter and chicken.
2. Add gar­lic to empty skil­let and cook until fra­grant, about 30 sec­onds.  Stir in cream, lemon zest, and lemon juice and sim­mer until sauce is slightly thick­ened, about 5 min­utes.  Remove from heat and cover.
3. Mean­while, add 1 table­spoon salt and pasta to boil­ing water and cook until al dente.  Drain pasta, reserv­ing 1/2 cup cook­ing water, and return to pot.  Add sauce, spinach, Parme­san, pine nuts, and browned chicken to pot and toss to com­bine, adding reserved pasta water as needed.  Sea­son with salt and pep­per.  Serve.

America’s Test Kitchen Note: Toast the pine nuts in a dry skil­let over medium heat, shak­ing pan until golden and fra­grant, about 5 minutes.

Things I learned:

• I loved, loved, loved it!!
• I had a lot of fun toast­ing the pine nuts (where do they come?).
• I used a George Fore­man type grill to brown the chicken, and thereby totally elim­i­nated the but­ter and shaved off even more calories.
• Bland food is so bor­ing, so I added more lemon juice and zest, even capers, more pep­per and feta cheese.  I imag­ine sun-dried toma­toes would be great in this too.  There are lots of options!
• Also, I used whole wheat penne pasta.

Rat­ing: 5

This was so easy and actu­ally fun to make.  I think it is very ver­sa­tile also.  After jazz­ing it up with more zest, I real­ized that per­haps a lit­tle but­ter or olive oil wouldn’t have hurt any­thing.  Still, it was good. 

Either I am get­ting bet­ter at this cook­ing thing, or this was the eas­i­est recipe ever  

Com­ing up: Chicken and Cheese Que­sadilla Pie