What's for dinner 2/23/2011

Prepare yourself for jealousy!! Tonight I made grilled chicken marinated in olive oil, basil, garlic w/ a pinch of salt & pepper. Along with the chicken I made grilled asparagus & red peppers also marinated in olive oil, basil and garlic. I then used some of the grilled peppers to make a cream sauce. I know, you're drooling. I can't blame you.


So here's how I did it:

To marinate the chicken you just drizzle about 1-2 tbs of olive oil on the chicken while it's in a bag. I then minced a clove of garlic and about 3 basil leaves. I put the garlic & basil in the bag. I then lightly salted and pepper the chicken. Viola! That's it. Put it in the frig for about an hour and you're good to go.

I pretty much did the same thing with the asparagus & peppers. I cut the peppers into strips. I kept them in the frig for about the same time.

So I grilled some peppers for about 10 minutes then used them for my sauce. I minced another garlic clove and ever so gently sauteed it in about a tbs of butter. Then I used 1/2 pint (if I had a whole pint I would have used that) of cream and then used a cup of milk because I didn't have 2 cups of cream. Added another tbs of butter and then I added another 2-3 leaves of fresh basil along with salt, pepper, some onion powder and a dash of poultry seasoning. I brought it to a boil and then simmered it for about 20 minutes. I blended the peppers in the sauce so there would not be chunks.

While the sauce was simmering, I grilled the chicken and the veggies. I put the chicken on for about 8 minutes then flipped the chicken and put the veggies on for the remainder of the cooking time, about 18 minutes. Now I took my chicken off in 16 minutes and let it sit for about 10 while I was waiting for the rigatoni to cook. Double check your chicken and make sure the temp is 165. You don't want to under cook your chicken, but also don't want it to be leather.

I carved the chicken and laid it ontop of the pasta, added the veggies and then smothered it with the sauce. It was delish!

Okay, so stop drooling; go get your ingredients and have a hearty plate of Grilled chicken, red peppers and asparagus in red pepper cream sauce. Yummm!