Garden to Table

Tuesday April 30th Dinner: Broccoli

This was a delicious  Pasta Primavera with Chicken using the Broccoli we harvested just minutes before.

This sounds really involved and immensely time consuming, but it really wasn't. Maybe 20 minutes of cooking. I absolutely love cooking and food isn't worth eating if it doesn't taste good and if its not nutritious. I always have on hand homemade chicken stock *. Instead of grabbing a can of chicken stock with who knows what is in it, I go to the refrigerator and pour out what I need. It keeps for about a week. I've also frozen the stock and it works very well!

I had made Lemon Garlic Chicken Breasts *a few days ago and just used the left over chicken...such a great idea, if I do say myself.


 Pasta:

Brown Rice Pasta
Butter
Stock
Garlic
Broccoli
Red Onion
Carrots
Snap Peas
Quatro Formagio Cheese Blend( Parmesan, asiago, fontina, mozzarella )

Lemon Garlic Roasted Chicken

Ingredients:
4 thinly sliced chicken breasts*
1 lemon
white wine
stock
garlic
salt
mediterranean herb blend* (oregano, thyme, fennel seed, rosemary)

*i always adapt recipes to my palate and here's what I did differently:

Stock
- this week I actually used turkey wings when making the stock. They were on sale and I couldn't pass up $2.82 for 2 big turkey wings.
- I use cilantro more often than parsley. I'll alternate, its whatever I have on hand.

Chicken:
- used thinly sliced breasts because I get better flavor and easier to cook
- used the mediterranean spice blend because it tastes better. I buy it at               Earthfare
- I love garlic is an understatement, but I only used 6 cloves instead of 9.
-I use grapeseed oil instead of olive oil

Pasta Primavera
- Because I don't eat gluten (basically wheat) I use Trade Joe's brand of Brown Rice Pasta. My palate cannot taste the difference in conventional pasta. And, I'm not sure if you get the heavy feeling, I shouldn't have eaten that feeling as you are finishing pasta dishes?, but I don't get that feeling when I eat the Brown Rice Pasta. Also Brown Rice pasta doesn't have the same affect on blood glucose levels as the conventional wheat based pasta. Wheat really wreaks havoc on your system, in more ways than you know.
- Heated the garlic up
-Saute the red onion
- Threw in the broccoli, Snap Peas and Carrots (julienne)
-Added stock
-Combined all into the brown rice pasta
-Sprinkled maybe 1-2 Tablespoons of cheese
Give it a stir and serve