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!

SHRIMP PENNE ALFREDO

This weekend, I looked for something to make that we already had a lot of ingredients for. It was perfect that I came across this recipe for a shrimp alfredo sauce served over penne pasta, as almost all of the ingredients we already had in the fridge or the pantry and it looked really straightforward to make. This recipe makes six hearty bowls of pasta.

Ingredients
~ 1 box (16 oz.) penne pasta
~ 4 tbsp olive oil
~ 1 onion, diced
~ 2 cloves garlic, minced
~ 1 red bell pepper, diced
~ 8 oz. package of mushrooms, diced
~ 1 lb. medium shrimp, peeled and de-veined
~ 1 (15 oz.)  jar of alfredo sauce
~ 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
~ 1/2 cup half-and-half
~ 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper (or to taste)
~ Salt and pepper to taste
~ Parsley for garnish

Process
The first thing that you need to start off with is to prep all of the vegetables you have. Dice up the onions, peppers and mushrooms, and mince up the garlic. After you’re finished with that, prepare the shrimp by peeling and de-veining them. Put them on a separate plate and sprinkle salt, pepper, and parsley to both sides of them; set aside to cook later.

Now that you have all of the preparation work done, bring a pot of lightly salted water to boiling and pour the penne pasta in. Cook according to the box’s instructions (for us, it was about 10 minutes). While that is going, in a large frying pan, heat it up on the stove and pour some oil in. Cook the peppers, onions, mushrooms, and shrimp all the way through on about medium-high heat and then set them all into a large saucepan. When you are done cooking with the pan, swap it out with the saucepan and begin to heat that up on medium-high heat. Add in the alfredo sauce and half-and-half, stir for a little bit, and then add in the grated Parmesan. Add in the cayenne pepper, along with the salt and pepper, while tasting the sauce as you’re adding to ensure the flavors are to your liking. Once that’s done, turn off the heat and keep the pan on the stove.

The best way that we found to prepare it for serving was to put the pasta in a separate mixing bowl and then add in the alfredo sauce to it, tossing it, and then transferring that to the dinner bowl. Serve with some dried parsley sprinkled on the top for garnish. We found the overall flavor of the dish to be pretty good; however, the 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper is fairly mild for this amount of sauce. If you want to kick up the heat a notch, you can always try 1/2 tsp. The dish itself wasn’t as heavy as other alfredo dishes I have had before, which was a pleasant surprise and something that I liked about it. This is something that’s great to throw together for a hearty meal and is sure to satisfy.