Pasta La Vista

I can hear you now: “What the…?” Well you can blame Lauren because she named the dish Pasta La Vista when I first made it up. She will protest calling this Pasta La Vista because of the blasphemy of using zucchini in it. The original recipe had spinach and more recently, she made it with kale for all of us at Christmas time and it was really good that way.Lauren would rather eat dirt than zucchini I think, so I can see her point, but I made up the recipe and she won’t be here for supper tonight, and I’ll use use zukes if I like. And I do like to use them. Once the garden starts producing really well, I am going to blog a zucchini recipe every night for a whole week. We eat it every night, so why not share? Don’t leave your car parked in my driveway without locking the door if the zucchini is doing well – I will fill your back seat when you aren’t looking. Then in October, I will cry because they are all gone.

It helps to get your ingredients prepped before you start cooking. The prep takes about 10 minutes and cooking about twice that, so it’s a pretty fast meal.

Start by cubing about 10 ounces of boneless, skinless chicken breast. Sprinkle liberally with salt, pepper, dried oregano and thyme and a bit of garlic powder. Using a 12 inch skillet, heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil till very hot. Put the chicken cubes in all at once and spread out in the pan. Leaving the heat on high, do not stir for about 3 minutes. Turn them over and get a little sear on the other side as well – another couple minutes. They don’t have to be cooked through at this point, because they are going to cook more later on. What you want to do is get some good seared color on it because that will deepen the flavor of the finished dish. Color = flavor, except for black which isn’t as tasty – if you get to black, you should throw that out and start over. Remove the chicken from the pan and place in a bowl.These are the vegetables I usually use, plus the zucchini of course. I like to leave them in fairly large pieces so that they don’t over cook. You want both a bit of a sear on them and a little crunch. About 6 ounces of white mushrooms, 1/2 of a big vidalia onion, 1 medium red pepper and 8 little baby zucchinis. The zucchini cooks the fastest, so rather than try to brown it when there are a lot of other veggies in the pan, I sear it off first and then hold it in the same bowl as the chicken. To do this, heat another tablespoon of olive oil in the same pan, salt and pepper the zuke chunks lightly and spread them out in the hot oil, trying to get as many cut sides down as you can. Leave the heat high and in a couple minutes when there is good color on one side, turn them over and do the other side. The idea is to have good color on at least half of them and zucchini overcooks very quickly so don’t leave them in too long.Now, things speed up. Add another tablespoon or so of olive oil. [and really, if you don’t have to worry too much about fat, you can add several tablespoons. Olive oil is good for you. But I am trying to stick to a little lower fat diet these days, so less olive oil for me] When the oil is good and hot, sprinkle the veggies lightly with kosher salt and a few grind of pepper, toss in the pan and spread them out evenly, leaving the heat very high. Stir after a few minutes, lower the heat a bit and add about 1/4 cup of red wine and a 16 ounce can of diced tomatoes in juice, or a can of whole tomatoes that have been cut up, and a 1/4 cup of chicken broth or water. [you can cut them right in the can with a pair of kitchen shears, if you don’t have the diced ones on hand] I got distracted at this point in the process I guess because there is not a photo of all the veggies in the pan. Sorry about that. I used angel hair pasta for this, so I had my water going and put the pasta in at about this point. You would do it at few minutes earlier if you are using a pasta that takes longer to cook. Follow the package directions.

These are the herbs I used today, from left to right: parsley, rosemary, thyme and oregano. And a whole bunch of minced up garlic. I am blessed to have lots of fresh herbs, but you can use dried if that is what you have. [for dried, I would use about 1/2 teaspoon of each, except the parsley which would be a couple tablespoons.] And any combo is fine – what ever suits your taste. I just did a rough chop on them after removing the leaves from the stems [stems are not yummy] and ended up with about a teaspoon of each herb, and a tablespoon of the parsley. And please – use fresh garlic. Not the kind in the jar which tastes just awful. I used about 4 cloves. Throw in all the herbs and about half of the garlic. Stir again and cover with a lid, lowered heat to a simmer. Stir after about 5 minutes and add the rest of the garlic, the chicken and the zucchini. Cook about 5 minutes more or until the onions and peppers are as done as you like. Taste and add more salt if needed.
To serve, ladle sauce generously over the cooked pasta. See that cheese in the photo? That is supposed to freshly grated pecorino romano which I could have sworn I had, but apparently did not, since I can’t find it. I ended up using cheddar which was pretty good and I wasn’t going to trash this whole post over a little grated romano. I am nothing if not adaptable, at least when it comes to cooking. So, there you go – lots of fresh, bright flavors and very little fuss.
Makes 3 big servings.