Creamy Chicken Rigatoni with Broccoli

The recipe this dish was based on was really named "Creamy Peanut Chicken Fettuccine with Broccoli," but it was absent peanuts because they don't live in our house any more with a peanut-allergic toddler. And I didn't have any Fettuccine, so I used the pasta I had on-hand: Rigatoni. All-in-all, it turned out pretty good – not great, but pretty good.

Mostly I was just excited because it allowed me to bond with a couple of my new 2010 cooking principles:

1. Substitution is OK, welcome even.
   
2. Using up food in the house is encouraged.
   
3. Adjusting a recipe to taste is wise, even if feels like it's violating the rules.
   

The original recipe is from Robin Miller's latest cookbook, Robin Rescues Dinner, which I borrowed from the library, then got for Christmas. (Thanks, Mom!) I soooo love the library for this "try-it-before-you-buy-it"process. I mean, I do definitely want to own cookbooks. They are such a joy to browse. Even though I use the Internet a lot to source recipes and especially like the reviews that come with that medium, I also like to curl up with a cookbook and some paper scraps to mark the recipes I'd like to try. But I've picked up some real duds over the years doing that site unseen thing.

Anyway… Robin Miller's books are some of my favorites. Not only is she the author of my go-to chili recipe (which I'm sure I'll be making soon enough and posting about), she's big on prep-ahead and banking a batch and morphing meals – where you move leftovers from one meal into the next. Thus the peanut-crusted chicken called for in this recipe is leftover from Peanut-Crusted Chicken with Apple-Gorgonzola Relish, which I didn't, in fact, make. Instead, I used the George Foreman to cook up a couple of quick breasts that I chopped from there. Figured the grilling might give it a better texture than my standard poached-and-cubed from the freezer. Anyway, it turned out OK.

What I really liked about this recipe is that even though it creates a cream sauce, it's not really a heavy-cream base. Not that I mind cream AT ALL, it's just that I seldom have it on hand. But flour and milk and parmesan cheese, I almost always have on hand, so that was nice.

It was also nice that I had red bell peppers on-hand that I could throw into Robin's recommended "Quick Side Dish: Sauteed Bell Peppers": Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 sliced bell peppers (preferably 1 red and 1 yellow) and ½ cup sliced red onion and cook for 5 minutes, or until soft. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. So easy.

And regarding #2 above, I was so proud to polish the remainder of the NYE crudités platter by using up the remaining the broccoli and the red peppers. Don't worry – they weren't rotten. I'm just publishing this extremely late.

And regarding #3 above, I reduced the ingredient for "pinch of ground nutmeg" to just "the residue in the lid" because I find nutmeg to overwhelm a dish otherwise.

Anyway, here's the full recipe. Quick, easy, satisfying. I suspect it would have been better with the peanuts from the other chicken recipe, but I'm afraid that's not going to happen here.

Creamy Chicken Rigatoni with Broccoli

• 12 ounces spinach or regular fettuccine (I used Rigatoni.)
  
• 2 cups fresh broccoli florets
• 2 cups milk
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
• Pinch of ground nutmeg
• 4 reserved cooked peanut-crusted chicken breast halves, cubed (or 4 cups cubed cooked chicken)
• ¼ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (I skipped this.)
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Cook the fettuccine according to the package directions, adding the broccoli for the last 30 seconds of cooking. Drain and set aside. (I just steam-nuked the broccoli on its own.)
   
2. In a large saucepan, whisk together the milk and flour. Set the pan over medium-high heat and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 3 minutes, or until the mixture thickens. Whisk in the Parmesan cheese and nutmeg and cook until the cheese melts. Add the fettuccine, broccoli, and chicken and cook for 1 minute to heat through.
   
3. Remove from the heat, fold in the parsley, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve with extra Parmesan cheese on the side.
   

SERVED: 1/5/10 (and for several lunches thereafter)

Lady Nails

Not directly related to my cooking, but I couldn't resist sharing this. Shopping at Harvestime this morning, the endcap at checkout tried to woo me to purchase this impulse buy:




-- Post From My iPhone

Revenge of the Multi-Tasked

Per Eric's request, I'm planning a chicken, broccoli, rice casserole for dinner tonight. And, as you know, one of my mantras to successful cheffing is to prep as much as possible in advance. To that end, I thought I'd tackle the 50-minute brown rice while I was reading my morning work email.

• All was well. Bring to boil, simmer on low for 50 min.
  
• The timer went off.
• I obeyed with a quick check and assessed that it needed another five minutes.
• Reset timer and returned to email.
• The timer went off again.
• I obeyed with a quick check and assessed that it was done, turned the stove knob and back to work -- an shining example of successful multi-tasking.

Except -- about 5 minutes later, I smell something burning. Turns out I had turned the knob to high instead of off. Duh. Thank goodness I'm only 10 feet away working at the kitchen table. I salvaged the top, unadhered portion of the rice. But we'll have to see if those scorched flavors make their way into my casserole. We'll also have to see if I am ever able to get that rice unstuck from my pan. Maybe it's karma for me subbing brown rice in where the recipe calls for wild rice. Whatever -- I am in pantry patrol mode this month, wherein I found a bag of perfectly good brown rice, so I'm using it dammit. Anyway, I sure hope the rest of this cooking adventure turns out OK.

Denise Made What?

So I'm, like, on a roll with the blogging -- knocking out two posts in one night, but post-dating to keep things from piling up (I'm sly like that). But already I'm stumped. I'm telling you, this is why the blog is going to be so handy. I seriously cannot remember the things that I cook and why we liked or didn't like them or what I did right or wrong. And now, even less than a week in, I'm like "Denise Made What?"

Let's see... if Sunday was Super Bowl Casserole and Monday was leftover casserole with green salad, what the hell was Tuesday? It's been kind of a week of on-hand concoctions, so it couldn't have been too exciting.

Insert long, temple-rubbing pause here.

Oh yeah, I remember now. I was so proud of myself because I made it another day without a trip to the grocery, was able to try a new recipe, and used up the final bits of the broccoli leftover from New Years Eve. Well, one has to question if it's really "leftover" if it was never even served. I kind of loss sight of vegetable trays when the keg of Half Acre's Daisy Cutter was finally tapped and consequently the broccoli never made it out of the fridge.

Daisy Cutter, you ask? What can I say? It's a new favorite. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

In any case, I'll leave you in suspense for now. More on the broccoli-finishing concoction later...

Super Bowl Casserole

I like to make a casserole or soup or some-such large-portioned, good-leftover meal on Sundays to make sure we have something to get us through the start of the week until I'm able to do full-fledged grocery shopping (which I prefer to do on Monday or Tuesday because I figure they're getting new, fresh stuff delivered then). So this past Sunday, I found this recipe in The Big Book of Chicken that used everything I already had on-hand. Love that. Eric classically calls these types of dishes "concoctions," but devours them nonetheless. I mean, what could be bad about cheese and noodles and chicken – oh, and more cheese? This was a tasty casserole that fit the bill perfectly for leftovers.

I was especially proud to use up leftover ingredients from our New Years Eve party, like red bell pepper and cream cheese and sour cream. I'll have to recap that menu later, as I cheffed it up for days and found some good new go-to appetizer recipes.

The cubed cooked chicken was even on-hand for this recipe. It is a freezer staple here. You see, even though I really like to cook, I don't always like to do it every single day and don't always like to tackle every step start-to-finish on the day-of. I'm a big fan of pre-prepping and am constantly experimenting with which things can be done in advance without impacting the final product negatively. So I frequently pre-poach chicken breasts, chop them, and store them in the freezer for just such "concoction" recipes. So easy.

I think I'll put together a post of freezer staples that I can use to keep a running list of good things to keep in the freezer. Good to remind me of when I am going to have a busy week and can do some pre-planning, pre-prepping. Also good to remind me to experiment with my freezer, even as small as it is. I'm definitely looking forward to the new house and the possibility of having a bonus freezer in the basement. How very Martha Stewart of me, eh?

One thing I've already learned about this food blogging – and I haven't even really begun, have I? – is that food photography is definitely an art and I am woefully unartistic in that arena. I'll have to read some other folks' blogs on how to take appetizing photos of food, since so far mine have looked pretty icky. I'm going to post them anyway, so that when I become a master of the lens, we'll all have a point of comparison. I probably should put some effort into learning a bit about plating as well, which would, in turn be aided by the revival of my window herb garden, no doubt. When we moved outside for summer, I let my indoor plants die off. Bummer. This casserole really could have used a smattering of chopped parsley to spruce it up. I should also really try to remember to take photos BEFORE we dig in. You'll see in many posts soon that I frequently forget that crucial sequencing. I could definitely benefit from this book on Digital Food Photography. Hint, hint, Eric.

Anyway, here's the recipe if you wanna try it:

Super Bowl Casserole

• 6 ounces egg noodles -- (about 4 cups), cooked according to package directions, drained
  
• 1 can tomato sauce -- 15 oz
  
• 1/2 cup red bell pepper – chopped
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
  
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
  
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
  
• freshly ground pepper
  
• 1 cup cottage cheese
  
• 4 ounces cream cheese
  
• 1/2 cup sour cream
  
• 2 cups cubed cooked chicken
  
• 8 green onions -- including some tender green tops, sliced
  
• 2 cups cheddar cheese -- shredded
  

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
   
2. Put the cooked noodles in a lightly sprayed or oiled 2-quart casserole.
   
3. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the tomato sauce, bell pepper, salt, basil, thyme, and pepper to taste, and simmer for 5 minutes.
   
4. In a food processor, puree the cottage cheese, cream cheese, and sour cream until smooth. Add the cheese mixture and the tomato mixture to the noodles and mix well.
   
5. Fold in the chicken and onions.
   
6. Sprinkle the Cheddar cheese on top.
   
7. Bake, covered, for 30 minutes.
   

SERVED: 1/3/10 (and 1/4/2010 as leftovers, but I made a nice green salad for a side)

Freezer Staples

This post is a list of different items that I put in the freezer for future use or long-term storage. I will build this page as I build Denise Made This.

Cooked Cubed Chicken
Description: Called for in many casserole recipes, cooked cubed chicken can be batched up easily. If I'm cooking 2 breasts for a recipe, I'll most definitely cook up 4, if not 6. I typically just poach them (boil for about 12-15 minutes). It doesn't make for the most attractive chicken, but it holds the moisture well since it's typically re-cooked in the casserole. I chop up the breasts and pack in 2-cup portions in tupperware or freezer ziplocks. I used to do large batches of pre-cooked chicken in the crockpot because it shreds so easily, but the texture in casseroles was grossing me out. It was almost tuna-like. I think I was cooking it too long. Will have to experiment more with that in the future because it sure was easy, but the experiment requires quite a large quantity of chicken. I was on a kick for awhile to use it in some of these shredded chicken recipes from Recipe Zaar.

Recipes:
Super Bowl Casserole
Concoctchiladas

Denise Made This

I'm starting a blog here in 2010 to chronicle my cooking. Far from an official "food blog," where folks might come to find new recipes, I'm planning to use this just to kind of log stuff we tried and whether or not we liked it.

You see, I seem to have this tendency to gravitate to the same recipes, forgetting what I liked about them or what I'd change on the second go-round. I take notes in cookbook margins sometimes and I try to keep comments on my digital recipes as well, but it's not as much fun as a blog.

I really don't even care if anybody reads this. It's just for me. Creates a sense of accomplishment that I'm actually pursuing my interests -- food and writing. Will help me do my weekly food plan like I should, too.

Well, without further comment, here we go...