MUSHROOM CHICKEN PASTA

There was some days where you just look into the refrigerator to see what you can make with a bunch of different ingredients. Yesterday was one of those days.

I came back home for the holiday weekend today, and that meant trying to use up all of the remaining vegetables in the refrigerator, since I didn’t want them to go bad by the time I got back. Luckily for me, I only had to contend with mushrooms and garlic, and I had moved a chicken breast to defrost from the freezer the night before. One more look in the pantry gave me everything I needed to put together this dish.

A dish that doesn’t require a lot of components or time.

A closer look at the plating pattern I used for the dish.

Mushroom Chicken Pasta
Makes 2 – 3 servings

~ 1/2 box linguine or spaghetti
~ 1 10 oz. can of condensed cream of mushroom soup
~ 1/2 cup water
~ 1 large chicken breast
~ 4 cloves garlic
~ 5 – 6 white mushrooms
~ Flour
~ 1 egg
~ Sriracha sauce
~ Parsley

Prep Work:

• Take your mushrooms and slice them up nice and evenly. Even if the mushrooms are large in size, don’t worry as they will probably shrink during the cooking process.
• Take your cloves of garlic and mince them. Feel free to adjust the number of cloves based on your love of garlic.
• For the chicken breast, I cut them down into one-inch chunks. However, you could reduce their cut size even further if you want to attain a more bite-sized piece.
• Lay out two additional bowls next to your pieces of chicken: one with egg and one with flour. Take your chicken pieces and first toss them in the flour to get that first initial coating. Then move then over into the egg and then back into the flour for a second round of coating. Set those aside when you’re finished.

Stovetop:

• The cream of mushroom soup will act as the sauce base for the pasta, so let’s get that rolling. In a medium saucepan, pour the mushroom soup, along with 1/2 cup of water. Mix that up so that the water gets nice and distributed, and then bring the soup to a boil. Once it hits that point, go ahead and throw in your mushrooms and garlic. Simmer this mixture at medium-low for about 15 minutes.
• Once the soup is set for simmering, go ahead and start to boil a pot of water for your pasta. The aim is to try to get the pasta to finish a little after your other two ingredients, just so that you can turn your full attention to draining the pasta and walking away from the stovetop for a bit. The linguine I used takes about 8 minutes to to cook to al dente, so add in the time for the water to boil and it’s right around that mark.
• When the water for the pasta is getting close to boiling, start heating up a medium-sized skillet on medium-high with a small layer of oil for the shallow pan fry. (At this point, if your water is boiling, go ahead and throw your pasta in there). Test out your oil after a few minutes to see if it’s ready by adding a small pinch of flour to the pan. If you see the oil react, it’s showtime.
• Add in your chicken breast pieces and start to fry them, with the objective to get a golden brown color on the outside. Adjust the heat during cooking to make sure that the chicken can cook through all the way, and add a little bit of oil here and there to help out the frying process.
• After my chicken was finished, I set them aside on a plate so that they didn’t continue to cook on the hot pan. Taste your soup to see if the flavor is good or if you need to add any spices. Drain out the pasta, and we’re ready to start plating.

Plating:

• Put your layer of pasta on the dish first, adding a few scoops of the mushroom soup on top of that. Take your Sriracha sauce and add some of that on top (I decided to go with a zig-zag pattern). Put some of the chicken breast chunks on top of that, sprinkle some parsley over that for garnish, and that meal is good to go.

I drew some inspiration for this dish from alfredo, as I wanted to see what alternative for a creamy sauce could be for the pasta. Cream of mushroom soup provided the perfect answer, and by adding more mushrooms, it gave the soup that chunky consistency that I was looking for. The sriracha sauce definitely gives the dish additional flavor and level of heat (not to mention it gives the plate a nice contrast) that mixed well with the cream of mushroom soup. I’m thinking the chicken breast doesn’t need to be breaded to add to this dish, but doing so gives it that slight crunch that makes it even more enjoyable.

From a flavor standpoint, I thought that it was a well-balanced dish, with no one component overpowering any of the other ones. It is definitely a hearty meal, and I was so hungry yesterday that I helped myself to two plates!

SPAGHETTI AND MEATBALLS

Spaghetti and meatballs is one of those things that the instant someone says it, you can picture it almost instantly in your mind’s eye. It’s something that I have been eating since I was little, and is a very classic Italian dish that you can find in many restaurants. Last night, I had the right combination of ingredients in my fridge to give spaghetti and meatballs a go.

For the pasta, you can interchange the spaghetti with fettuccine, linguine, or even angel hair pasta (capellini). The recipe portion for the meatballs plays off of my mixture to make Italian-Style Burgers. I wanted to incorporate some of those flavors when you take a bite out of the meatballs in this sauce; however, a lot of flavor will absorb into the meatballs as they are cooked in the pasta sauce.

Spaghetti and Meatballs
Makes about 2 servings
Yields 8 – 10 small-/medium-sized meatballs

~ Spaghetti pasta
~ 1 jar pasta sauce

~ 1/2 lb ground beef
~ 1/4 tsp garlic powder
~ 2 tsp oil
~ 1/4 tsp salt
~ 1/4 tsp pepper
~ 1/2 tsp basil leaves
~ 1 tsp Worchestershire sauce
~ 1 1/2 tsp Parmesan cheese
~ 1/8 cup (2 tbsp) shredded mozzarella cheese

** Please read the note under Potential Adjustments before starting to follow these instructions.

Start by putting your ground beef into a mixing bowl and then adding in all of the spices and cheeses. Either using your hands or some kitchen utensils, start to mix up the meat so that all of the spices/cheeses spread evenly into the mixture. If the beef mixture seems to have too much moisture, add in some breadcrumbs to compensate for that. Roll the beef mixture into meatballs and set them aside on a plate to get ready for stovetop cooking. Before we get to that, we need to start on the sauce.

Pour the jar of pasta sauce into a medium-sized saucepan. I usually jazz up my pasta sauce with some vegetables like green peppers, onions, mushrooms, or garlic when I have them in the fridge. Last night, I went with adding in some diced onions and garlic. Put the saucepan onto the stove on medium. If it starts to bubble before you finish the next step, reduce it down to medium-low.

Quick sidenote: I usually use a cover on the pot that I’m making the sauce in and when it simmers, some of the sauce splatters onto the bottom of the lid. This time, I used some aluminum foil to cover the bottom of the lid so that I could make for an easy cleanup.

While the sauce starts to heat up, take out a small frying pan and brown the meatballs on the outside. The trick to this is to use a medium-high heat and to flip the meatballs to different sides after no more than 10 – 15 seconds of cooking on one side. Once the meatballs have browned up nicely, drop them right into the sauce. Bring the sauce to a simmer, and leave that there for 13 – 16 minutes.

While the sauce is cooking, follow the instructions on your box of spaghetti to get that cooked and finished around the same time. Plate it either all mixed together or with the sauce ladled on top of the pasta. I garnished it with some parsley and a few sprinkles of Parmesan cheese.

Potential Adjustments:

For me, I think that I might have overkilled the meatballs a little bit when cooking last night. They didn’t come out as soft and moist as I would have liked them to be. I could attribute this to one of two factors: either I cooked them too long while browning the outside, or I cooked them too long in the sauce. The time that I have up in the directions (13 – 16 minutes) reflects an adjusted time of cooking in the sauce (I cooked for 20 minutes in the sauce). But that’s just still an overall guideline.

Based on how big you make the meatballs, they could cook faster or slower. Use your culinary instincts to make the call about how much to adjust the cooking time for the browning in the pan and the cooking in the sauce. I will update this recipe after trying this dish again and post my findings.

RUFFINO’S RESTAURANT AND PIZZERIA

Address: 178 State Route 35, Eatontown, NJ 07724

My family has been coming to Ruffino’s ever since we met the owner almost three years ago. I still remember being very impressed by the quality of the food and the freshness of the ingredients when I first came here to eat, and even now, that still hasn’t changed. I have had the opportunity to sample a number of dishes from Ruffino’s, from the pizza to the stromboli,  the chicken parmigiana to the sausage & peppers hero; everything is rich with flavor and the technique executed very well. They have a very substantial menu, and I would really like to try more of their specialty subs as well as their pasta dishes. Their pizza I am very familiar with: an excellent balance of generous toppings with flavorful sauce, baked on a crust that is soft, yet has a crisp to it. I always see the owner, Vito Ruffino, working in the front-of-the-house making all of the pizzas from scratch.

The restaurant itself is tucked away in the OfficeMax shopping plaza off of Route 35. It isn’t a very large dining room (I think it can seat around 40 people), but the decorations are pretty nice. The rest of the staff are very friendly, always coming back to check out up on you during the meal and refill your drinks. Depending on what night you go in, it could be busy or it could be low-traffic, but one thing is for certain: Vito Ruffino set his standards high back then, and still consistently delivers now. I would recommend Ruffino’s to anyone who is in the area and wants to try some top-notch Italian fare.

Here are my rankings for Ruffino’s:

Food: 5 / 5
Food quality is very consistent, and the flavor is always there. Diverse menu gives you a lot of great options to choose from.

Atmosphere: 4 / 5
Even though the dining room is a little on the smaller side, it still provides a good area to be able to sit down and enjoy your meal.

Service: 5 / 5
The staff is really friendly, and the time for the food to get prepared is usually very quick.

Price: 4 / 5
For the amount of food that you get, it is a very reasonable price. I’ve been to other restaurants and paid the same price, but haven’t gotten the consistent quality and flavors that I get from Ruffino’s.

Overall: 18 / 20 (90%)

NOODLES & COMPANY

Address: 102 N. Chauncey Avenue, Ste. A, West Lafayette, IN 47906

Noodles is a place that I have been to quite a few times in the past few years that I’ve been at school. The name itself illustrates their concept: serving noodles and other pasta dishes, and doing it well. Every time that I have gone to Noodles for a meal, I have never been let down.

The restaurant delineates their menu into three separate areas, each illustrating the flavors that they seek to capture in those dishes: American, Mediterranean, and Asian. For example, you’ll find your Mac & Cheese in the American category, Pad Thai or Japanese Pan Noodles in the Asian category, and then Penne Rosa or Tuscan Linguine in the Mediterranean category. I have very frequently ordered from the Mediterranean category, as I really like a lot of the flavor combinations that work so well with the fresh ingredients. The diversity of the menu really gives you a nice spread of options, and that sometimes makes it difficult to choose just what to get sometimes. All of the food is cooked-to-order. When you place the order for your dish, you specify the dish that you want, as well as an additional protein such as chicken, beef, shrimp, or meatballs, to complement the dish (it does cost extra). Then, you sit down at the table and in about five to seven minutes, they bring out the food, piping hot from the pan.

The dining area of the restaurant is also really nice as well. The nice, large windows provide a ton of ambient light that floods the restaurant during the day, and they also offer an outdoor dining area as well. All of the tables are cleaned after each party leaves, and the overall ambient atmosphere is really pleasant to dine in. The staff are really friendly when taking your order and come by to check on your food after they have brought it out. I would probably classify this as sort of a fast-casual dining concept, simply because your food is prepared so quickly, and it’s not like the run-of-the-mill fast food like McDonald’s or something. Noodles is definitely a place that I should visit more often, as they really cook up some excellent pasta dishes. Plus, after your meal, you can always head over to Red Mango in the next suite over for dessert!

Here are my rankings for Noodles & Company:

Food: 4.5 / 5
Everything tastes really fresh, the flavor profiles are all there, and the variety of dishes that are offered to you are always a big plus to Noodles.

Atmosphere: 4.5 / 5
I really like the ambiance inside the dining area, and the smell of the food from the partially-open kitchen is always enjoyable.

Service: 5 / 5
The staff were really friendly when taking my order, and worked to ensure that everyone was satisfied with how their food turned out.

Price: 4 / 5
The price for the dishes are not too bad, all things considered. It might lean a little more on the expensive side, but I think that the final product is worth it.

Overall: 18 / 20 (90%)

BAKED ZITI

This dish was something that I made for a party last semester, and it turned out to be a pretty big hit. One of the greatest things that I love about this recipe too is the flexibility of it. It doesn’t have to be ziti that you put into it; it could be penne, macaroni, spaghetti, all different types of pasta (but you’d need to scale the amount of pasta to the sauce mixture). It’s also a really hearty dish that packs some rich flavor, with the three types of cheese accentuating the beef, onions, and sauce, all coming together with the pasta. It’s a winning combination.

Ingredients
~ 1 lb. ziti (usually 1 box)
~ 1 medium onion, finely chopped
~ 1 lb. ground beef
~ 1 jar (24 oz.) spaghetti sauce
~ 12 slices mozzarella cheese
~ 1 container (16 oz.) ricotta cheese
~ 1 egg
~ 4 tbsp Parmesan cheese
~ Oregano
~ Salt and pepper

Process
The first thing to do is to prepare all of the onions. Go ahead and chop them up into small pieces, fit for putting into a sauce. Then, take out a large skillet and heat it up on medium-high heat. Crumble your meat into the skillet and cook that for a bit, before adding in the onions as well to cook for a little bit. Once both items have been cooking for a little while (like 2 – 3 minutes), pour in the jar of spaghetti sauce into the skillet and mix everything up. Simmer the mixture over medium-low heat for about 15 minutes.

While the sauce is going, bring a pot of water up to a boil. Pour in the box of ziti into the water and cook to the box’s instructions. About 4 minutes before the pasta is slated to be done, take out a large mixing bowl and put the ricotta cheese into it. Crack an egg into the ricotta and mix it up in order to give it a smoother texture. When the pasta is all done, strain it out and add the pasta into the bowl with the ricotta cheese. Toss the entire mixture until all of the ricotta is well-distributed among the pasta. At this point, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

By now, the sauce should be finished so remove that from the heat. Take out a 9″ x 13″ baking dish and start to layer up the dish. From the bottom, go in this order: Sauce -> Ziti / Ricotta -> Parmesan / Oregano -> Layer of mozzarella. Repeat this process one more time to top off the baking dish. Take out some aluminum foil and cover the dish before throwing it into the oven for 30 minutes.

Once it’s done, take it out of the oven and serve it up instantly. This dish is definitely best eaten warm, and it’s always a fun sight to see strands of melted cheese erupting from the dish!

THREE CHEESE CHICKEN BROCCOLI PENNE

Tonight, I was feeling a little adventurous with dinner. I thought I had settled on making macaroni and cheese again, but then I decided to see if I could merge a few things together to create a new dish. And thus, three cheese chicken broccoli penne was born.

Ingredients
~ 4 tbsp butter (I used Smart Balance, which is a butter substitute, for a much healthier route, and the sauce still tasted great!)
~ 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
~ 1 tsp salt
~ 1/2 tsp pepper
~ 1 1/2 cup of milk
~ 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
~ 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
~ 1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese
~ 1 tsp yellow mustard

~ 1 head of broccoli
~  2 chicken breasts
~  2 1/2 cups of penne pasta
~ Salt, to taste
~ Garlic powder, to taste

Process
There are four major components to this dish:
1. Pasta
2. Broccoli
3. Chicken
4. Cheese sauce

Out of all of these, I could prefer to have the pasta done last, so this way you can have everything mixed together while the pasta is fresh and not dried out or anything. So, let’s go ahead and tackle the broccoli first.

The trick is that you don’t want some really crunchy broccoli in the pasta, so I went ahead and steamed all of the broccoli crowns. First, prepare the broccoli by cutting off the stem and then separating it out into individual crowns. If the smaller crown is still pretty big, cut that into two separate pieces. Put about 3/4 cup of water into a a saucepan and then bring that up to a boil. Add in the broccoli and cover it, letting it steam for about seven minutes. While that’s going, I went ahead and started to prepare the chicken breast.

Now, the key with the chicken breast is that if you have a larger piece, cut it straight across horizontally, so now you have two smaller pieces that will cook faster on the stovetop. Season both sides with salt and pepper and then cook them in a frying pan with some oil; I would say that 3 – 4 minutes a side should do it. Once the chicken is done, remove it from the heat. Take the finished pieces and cut them into strips, and then cut the strips in half. Check back on the broccoli and if that’s also done, drain out the excess water and set that aside as well.

Now is about a good time to start boiling some water to make the pasta. Throw your penne into the pot and let that cook, somewhere around the neighborhood of 10 minutes. It’s all about timing with this, especially with all four of these components. It’s easy to reheat the broccoli and the chicken once you put everything together, but it would be more difficult for the pasta or the cheese sauce. It’s definitely manageable to make the cheese sauce while the pasta is cooking though.

To make the cheese sauce, first melt down the butter on medium heat. After that, stir in the flour, salt, and pepper. Gradually add in the milk and bring the mixture to a boil. Continue stirring until you feel the mixture has thickened, after which you can lower the heat back to medium high and add in all of the cheeses. Stir the sauce down until all the cheeses have fully melted in, and then throw in the teaspoon of yellow mustard to finish off the sauce. Turn off the heat for the pasta, drain off the pasta from the pot, and return the pasta into the pot. Turn the heat back on to about medium and pour the cheese sauce into the pasta, also mixing in the chicken strips and broccoli. After mixing everything together, I opted to add in a bit more salt and a few shakes of the garlic powder to give it a little more flavor. After warming everything for about 4 – 5 minutes, turn off the heat and you’re ready to go!