Day 1: Grilled Chicken, Creamy Garlic Pasta, and Garden Salad
The secret to perfectly grilled chicken is to bake it! I put my chicken in a 13 x 9 pan and coat it with my favorite Italian dressing (Bernstein’s Restaurant Recipe Italian which I buy in bulk when it goes on sale) and bake at 350 until just done. Sometimes when I am throwing a party I will do this the day before and refrigerate it until I need it. When I am ready to grill I brush some more dressing on the chicken and put it on the grill just long enough to warm it up, add grill lines, and give it a smokey flavor.
Creamy Garlic Pasta Recipe
1 – 2 lbs. of penne noodles, cooked according to the directions on the box. Don’t forget you can save the water used to cook the noodles and use it to water your plants.
2 T butter
2-4 garlic cloves, minced
2 T flour
3/4 C chicken broth or vegetable broth
3/4 C milk
1 T parsley
Melt butter; add garlic and brown. Add flour and cook until smooth and bubbly. Slowly add milk and broth; stirring constantly. Cook over a medium heat, while stirring until mixture boils and thickens. Add parsley. Sometimes I will add this sauce directly to 1 lb. of cooked noodles, but today I am going to serve the garlic sauce on the side, so that I can make use of any uneaten noodles tomorrow in a pasta salad.
Making a Real Garden Salad
When I make a garden salad, I go out to the garden with a colander and pinch, pull, and cut until the colander is full. Then I bring the colander in and run the vegetables under the faucet and let them drip dry. (Of course I collect the rinse water and use it to water the plants!) The salad is composed of what ever is ripe and ready to eat! Here is a partial list of items that I consider good salad material: arugula, Swiss chard (chop the stalks like celery and pinch the leaves like lettuce), lettuces, spinach, radishes, carrots, snap peas, parsley, green onions, tomatoes, kale, broccoli, bell pepper, and mustard leaves.
Day 2: Pasta Salad
~ 6 cups leftover penne noodles
~2 leftover grilled chicken breast, chopped into bite size pieces
~ 4 cups chopped vegetables (if I use tomatoes I use cherry or grape tomatoes because they keep and toss better than if I chop up a large tomato.)
~ 1/2 bottle leftover Italian dressing
Combine all of the above ingredients in a large bowl and toss until everything is completely coated with dressing. Serve chilled.
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