Red & Green Special Pasta-Chicken


1½# chicken breast meat
4T butter
½t fresh ground garlic sea salt
a little fresh ground pepper
1 14.5oz can diced tomatoes
½c Vodka
1 med. chopped purple onion
3-4 lg. cloves chopped garlic
½c capers
1c spinach-artichoke dip
1 to 1½c small pasta - cooked al dente



Sauté chicken with butter and seasonings until lightly browned.  Add all but the last two ingredients and simmer 20 minutes.  Stir in the dip and combine everything with pasta in a 3qt. casserole dish.  Heat an additional 10-15 minutes in a 325° oven or microwave 3 minutes, stir gently and microwave another 3 minutes on med.-high.  Shown here with Braised Bavarian Endive.  I went back to my old 'stomping grounds' this weekend for a surprise get-together with some special women I was in a potluck dinner group with for 16 years, prior to my move to Minnesota.  I decided to go simple with garlic and herb pita chips, gluten-free chips to accompany. . .(one of my favorites) store-bought Spinach-Artichoke Dip.  I found two.  One was really rich, just a spinach-artichoke combination.  The other was spinach-artichoke-jalapeno and had a wonderful kick to it.  I did what any sensible cook would do, I combine the two in a bigger bowl 😉  Afterword, there was quite a bit left over.  I was thinking I'd just pitch it, but instead found that a recipe was brewing in my mind, using the dip, combined with diced tomatoes, to hold all sorts of yummy ingredients together.  Now, remember. . .I was raised by a VERY black-and-white, by-the-book-cook, and was once asked to leave the kitchen when I wanted to blow up her traditional Meatloaf Recipe by adding chopped green peppers!  My Mom!  She was wonderful though, and we had a great relationship, but this is just a reminder that it's not always ''Like-Mother-Like-Daughter'' when it comes to cooking styles - - or ANYTHING for that matter!
Be Creative!! — Happy Cooking!!. . .Lin

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