Chicken and Broccoli with Lemon Vinaigrette

The Wife really likes lemon. I mean really, really likes lemon. She also really likes broccoli. And pasta. She also likes reading Jane Austen books, so I guess nobody's perfect. I'm not sure where I'm going with this.  Anyway, we had a pound of broccoli and a bag of lemons that weren't going to survive much longer so I went to work making a new recipe. I figured I would go with the whole salty/tart vibe. The result was a very tasty pasta dish. Though I served it hot, I imagine this would be a pretty good cold pasta dish for summer. Give it a try! Tell me what you think. As long as it's positive feedback. I figure as long as nobody is paying me to do this, I don't have to listen to any negativity. As always, notes are in blue.

Chicken and Broccoli
with Lemon Vinaigrette

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup olive oil (use as many virgins as you like)
• 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• juice of 4 medium lemons
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 2 small crowns broccoli (about 1 pound)
• 1-1/2 pound chicken (I used breast meat. There's no reason you can't use thighs if you prefer)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon capers, drained
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan
• 1 pound rotini pasta
• 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan (for garnish)

Directions

1. Combine first 5 ingredients in a bowl. Whisk to incorporate.
2. In a large pan, heat 1/4 cup of the vinaigrette. Add garlic and capers. Cook for about 3 minutes. Add the chicken. Cook until chicken is cooked through and juices run clear. 
3. Drain the liquid from the chicken and cook another minute or two until the chicken starts to get a bit of brown.
4. Cook the broccoli however you prefer (Some like to steam it. We prefer to give it a quick boil. Use a microwave bag of frozen if you want. I won't tell anyone.)
5. Cook the pasta until al dente (I went to school with him. Nice guy). Drain the pasta and return it to the pot you cooked it in (If you didn't cook the pasta in a pot, I guess you're screwed. Just throw everything out and order a pizza)
6. Now that you have a pot full of drained pasta, add the chicken, broccoli, a generous 1/2 cup of the vinaigrette (you'll have some extra vinaigrette. That's fine. You can use more on the pasta if you'd like or maybe use it as a salad dressing), then add the 1/2 cup grated Parmesan. Give it all a stir until the cheese incorporates. The pot should still be hot enough to melt the cheese.
7. Garnish with the shredded Parmesan when serving.

Good times!

Baked Pasta Frittata

     I really like the idea of baked pasta, but it's just not something we do much in our house. I'm not sure what came over me to decide on this recipe. I think I was looking for some sort of pasta casserole and saw this. I had most of the ingredients in the house and had solid substitutions for the ingredients that were not on hand.  The result was not bad. The smoked sausage gave it a nice savory flavor. I think this would be good if I swapped in some spinach or kale. It was a touch on the heavy side and made for a very filling meal. I'll try it again, but I have the feeling this will be one of those recipes I'm endlessly swapping parts on. As always, changes and notes are in blue.

Baked Pasta Frittata 
via The Essential Pasta Cookbook

Ingredients

• 1 oz butter
• 4 oz mushrooms, sliced
• 6 eggs
• 1 green pepper, seeded and chopped (the Wife's not a huge fan of green peppers, so we used a yellow bell pepper)
• 4 oz ham, sliced (we decided we had a surplus of smoked sausages in the freezer, so we used a 7 oz smoked sausage, halved and sliced)
• 1 cup cream or milk (we went with heavy cream)
• 3-1/2 oz spaghetti, cooked and chopped (amazingly enough, we did not have spaghetti in the house. We used rotini instead)
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan (right. Freshly poured out of the jar of Parmesan is more like it)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Lightly brush a flan dish with oil or melted butter (flan dish? Didn't have one on hand. I must have left it in the trunk of my Rolls Royce when I had the butler take it to be serviced. Please. I used my trusty cast iron skillet)
2. Melt the butter in a frying pan, add the mushrooms and cook over low heat for 2-3 minutes.  Add the pepper and cook for 1 minute. Stir in the meat. Remove the pan from the heat and allow the mixture to cool slightly. 
3. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs, cream and salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the pasta, parsley and mushroom mixture and pour into the prepared dish. Sprinkle with Parmesan and bake for 25-30 minutes. 

Good times!

Product Review: Wise Company Creamy Pasta and Vegetable Rotini

     Given the weather lately, the idea of keeping emergency rations in your home is not a terrible idea. The area where I live is prone to some violent outbursts of weather, most of which will knock the power out. If you don't have the luxury of a Generac system to back-up the power to your home, eventually you're going to lose the food in your refrigerator and freezer. Your options become a bit limited at this point.

Well, yes. Technically this is always a possibility. 

     You could go with canned goods, but they are bulky, heavy and won't keep for a super-long time. The cans could rust. You could lose your can opener. What I'm talking about is honest-to-goodness survival rations. There's always the old standby of military MRE (Meal, Ready-to-Eat. Or as my military friends would call them: Meals, Rarely Edible). I'm going to take a look at the emergency rations from Wise Company. Why? They sent me a free sample, to be quite honest. If you check the site you can request a sample, too (fair warning, it's going to require you to talk to a live sales person). The two advantages to Wise Company food that I saw was that they only require water to make and they have a 25 year shelf-life. Let us get started with the review.

Well, the packaging is nice. That's a good start. Made in the USA, too!

     They sent me Creamy Pasta and Vegetable Rotini. First off, the title is both redundant an incorrect. Rotini pasta is redundant. The alternative is there was vegetable rotini in the bag. There was not. I'm going to overlook this goof since if I were starving to death, I wouldn't even care if it was spelled phonetically. Theoretically, this bag is supposed to feed four adults. Let's flip the bag over and take a look at the back for some nutritional information!

Seems legit.

     210 calories a serving isn't too bad. This isn't really a calorie powerhouse unless you eat the whole bag and you're still 1200 calories shy of average daily intake. However, remember you're just looking to survive. You won't do that if you eat the whole bag because one serving is 800mg of sodium, 33% of your suggested daily allowance. For the most part the ingredients aren't too horrifying.  Let's tear open the bag and see what it looks like.

I thought the silica packet would add a nice bit of flavor but the wife made me take it out.

     The wife and I took a whiff of the contents and both reached the same conclusion that it smelled quite a bit like Ramen noodles. That's not a bad thing at all. There seemed to be a goodly amount of carrots and peas in there and the noodles looked decent. So far so good. Next we needed to prepare it. This couldn't be easier. All you need is a pot and 4 cups of boiling water.

You more than likely won't have access to an electric kettle to boil your water in an emergency.
In that case all you need is a pot, water and fire.

     We boiled up the water, dumped it in and gave it all a stir. The initial impression was that we had just created soup. However, we needed to put a lid on it and let it sit for 15 minutes, presumably to soak up all the water.

Theoretically, this will become creamy in around 15-20 minutes.

     After 15 minutes we took the lid off, and as per instructions, let the pasta sit for a couple more minutes. Creaminess was not achieved. We had vegetable soup. Now, if you're looking for survival, this may not be a bad thing. The broth will certainly fill you up. As it was not an emergency, we drained off the excess water and were left with the Creamy Pasta and Vegetable Rotini.

4 servings, my ass. Somebody is going to have to starve to death.

     If you drain the water, there's no way this is four servings. We were able to put together two shallow bowls. In fairness, this is for survival, not for luxury dining and we did drain the water. The final test remained. We needed to eat it. The carrots still had a bit of snap. The peas were a bit mushy but that was to be expected. The pasta held up well and wasn't too mushy. The flavor? Not bad. Kind of like high end Ramen with a thin cream sauce. If this was the only food we had available, I wouldn't be put out at all to eat it for a few days. It looked and tasted real. This is not something that can be said for many emergency rations or MREs. If you've ever had the tuna MRE you know what I'm talking about.

Final Review

Product: Wise Company emergency ration 

Cost: A bucket of 60 entrees (enough for 1 person for a month) is $134.99. If you're splitting this two ways, it's only about $1.13 per person per meal. That's reasonable enough considering the type of food you're dealing with.

Flavor: Not what you would call "flavor-packed," but not too bad.

Appearance: This is actually some good looking emergency food. 

Would I Buy It?: I can't justify buying the year package, no matter how cool that would be. However, for under $150 I could have 1 month of emergency food that will keep 25 years. That's not terrible. The wife and I are strongly considering getting a single case for the next weather-related calamity. I'd certainly be happy to throw these in my pack if I were camping.

Good times!