A little sweet, a little tangy

Sometimes you need to cook something fun for absolutely no reason at all. TK and I have had a crazy week and so last night I decided we needed a little treat.

Growing up in my house included inviting a lot of people over for dinner. Mom and Dad love having company and they never slacked on catering to our guests! One of my favorite meals Dad would make was a roundup of Italian deliciousness: chicken/veal Marsala, stuffed portobello mushrooms, Caprese salad and fresh homemade bread. Mmm!

Last night I decided to revisit one of these dishes and change it up a bit. I found a recipe for Chicken Marsala Pasta on 100 Days of Real Food and decided to try it out. Um, it was really good. Definitely something special.

Chicken Marsala Pasta with roasted asparagus

The dish – being pasta-based instead of letting the chicken stand on its own – was a lot different from when Dad makes it. I love pasta so I knew it was going to be good anyway.

The wine I used in the recipe.

I don’t use wine much in my cooking (to be honest, I don’t drink it very often either!) so I was a little lost when I was looking for the Marsala. A lady at Kroger pointed me to the Cribari Cellars Marsala and it turned out fairly nicely.

Marsala is very sweet and it was wonderful paired with the chicken and pasta. It also helped in deglazing my pan, making clean up not as horrid as it could be!

Asparagus

Additionally I wanted to add some roasted asparagus to my dish. The color was just fabulous and the taste really kicked it up a notch. Plus, I will take any chance I can get to get veggies into TK !

(Luckily) I made too much and was able to bring some of it for lunch today. I feel like I should have stopped about two bites ago, but it just tasted so good! My only self-criticism is that I wish my sauce had been thicker. I think it had to do with the kind of cream I used but in the future I may just add something else (flour or something) if I see it’s too runny for my taste.

Chicken Marsala Pasta

Ingredients:

• 1 lb pasta (I used linguini)
• 1 lb chicken breasts
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• flour
• 1 1/2 cups dry Marsala wine
• 1 cup heavy cream
• Optional: roasted asparagus or other additions such as broccoli, mushrooms, etc.
• freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Cook the pasta according to the package (make sure to keep it al dente) and prepare your veggies if that’s part of your dish.
2. Cut chicken into strips and coat in flour.
3. Saute chicken in olive oil over medium-high heat in a large saute pan until cooked thoroughly. Transfer chicken to a plate and keep warm.
4. Turn the heat off and add Marsala wine to pan.
5. Turn the heat back on high and boil the wine for a few minutes. (This is where the deglazing happens, so be sure to get hte little bits of chicken off the bottom of the pan).
6. Add the cream to the pan and stir until it combines and thickens.
7. Add the chicken back into the sauce and make sure all of it gets coated.
8. Put the pasta in bowls and top with sauce, chicken, veggies and cheese.

The finished product. Enjoy!