Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Rotini with Piquant Tomato and Chicken Sauce, Peach Pie and Ice Cream

The pasta I made for dinner tonight is from the Food and Wine Books Pasta book.  It is a boldly flavored sauce that pairs well with chicken.  The sauce gets its boldness from red wine and anchovies- two ingredients with which I do not often cook.  Anchovies add a salty, but not fishy, flavor. 

The recipe calls for cavatappi (corkscrew) pasta, but I used rotini.  While chopping the cooked chicken, I decided it was too much chicken for the amount of sauce.  So, I did not add all of it back to the sauce.  I put the excess chicken in the freezer for another use- like a recipe that calls for cooked chicken. 
We all enjoyed the pasta.

Ingredients
1/4 cup olive oil
3/4 tsp dried rosemary
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 anchovy fillets, chopped
1/2 tsp dried red-pepper flakes
1 3lb chicken, cut into 8 pieces (I used chicken breasts only)
3 1/2 cups canned tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth
1 Tab red wine vinegar
1 1/2 tsp salt
3/4 lb rotini
Grated Parmesan cheese

In a large frying pan, heat the oil over moderate heat.  Add the rosemary, galic, anchovies, and red-peper flakes and cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes.  Add the chicken and turn to coat.
Add the tomatoes, wine, chicken broth, vinegar, and salt.  Simmer the chicken, stirring occasionally, until the meat is very tender, about 45 minutes.  Remove the chicken.  Continue simmering the sauce until thickened, about 30 minutes longer.
When the chicken is cool enough to handle, pull the meat from the skin and bones and cut it into bite-size pieces.  Return the chicken to the sauce.
Cook the rotini according to the package directions for al dente.  Drain and return to the hot pot.  Add the sauce and toss.  Serve with Parmesan cheese. 

I also made a peach pie.  I served it with vanilla bean ice cream.  Apparently, Jacob enjoyed too much pasta and left no room for pie.  I was shocked.  He has never turned down anything involving ice cream.  Yet, tonight he was perfectly content playing while we enjoyed our (delicious!) pie.  I was planning to take a picture of him devouring the pie.  Instead, this is what I got:  

I made my own recipe using less sugar than usual and a bag of frozen peach slices.  This tasted like summer. 

Ingredients
4 cups peach slices (I used frozen peaches, thawed at room temperature for about 1 hour.)
2 Tab flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (almond is also really good, if you have any on hand)
dash of cinnamon

Pie crust (top and bottom)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Sprinkle peaches with flour and toss to coat.  Stir in remaining ingredients until well combined. 
Spread peaches in pie crust and top with crust.  Pierce air vents in top crust.
Bake pie 45-50 minutes.  Let cool slightly before serving.

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