Experimenting with......

FOOD!! What did you expect? ha ha!

The last few weeks I have been obsessing about the roasted red pepper sauce that Brenda told me about. So when I watched Tyler Ultimate this morning I was inspired! This receipt is not super healthy (you know if you are on the biggest loser at work) but its a healthy alternative to some other things!!

Tyler made Baked Rosemary-Garlic legs with Farmers Market pasta. You can get his information here (link)

Lets start with the chicken. I really just followed tyler. However i didnt want to use drumsticks (dark meat). At the store i found Split chicken breast and used them (up the cooking time to about 50minutes). Basically you just bread some chicken and bake it. Tyler used these PANKO breadcrumb - they are a Japanese style breadcrumb. I love them! They coated the chicken so well, had a great taste and texture! See Carla i am stepping out of my food box. to the breadcrumbs you add crushed up garlic and rosemary. David doesnt like fresh rosemary, so i substitute it for Pampered Chef Rosemary mix - the rosemary is smaller and he doesn't notice!!


When you take the chicken out of the oven you squeeze some lemon juice on them and i must stay it was very noticable in a good way! Doesn't it look yummy? SO easy!

Now onto the pasta. I majorly deviated from tyler on this one but his receipt was the base for mine!

Lets start with the sauce for this dish:


In a heated frying pan i put a tablespoon of EVOO , adding a little crushed garlic and crushed red pepper flakes. I let them heat up and get happy then i added about 1 1/2 jars of roasted red peppers whole. I mixed them into the garlic and oil and let them cook for about 5 minutes stirring often. I poured everything into my food processor and blended to the consistency i wanted. I added alittle more EVOO to help breakdown everything.

I poured everything back into the pan and let it simmer. I added a bit of salt, pepper, fresh basil and 1 tbsp of sugar. After about 20 minutes it looked like this:

I really do not like a thick sauce so i thinned it with some chicken stock (about 1 cup). I did this midway Thur the simmering process - this is all up to personal taste. I more than enough sauce so I froze some for later!!

Now onto the rest of the pasta! I cooked a box of smart sense healthy pasta. while that was cooking I sauteed (i hate to say saute because it was not real fatty) the following:

Sliced Zucchini
1/2 each chopped red and orange pepper
Fresh mushrooms
Artichoke hearts
the remained roasted red peppers.

like i said i dont like saying sauteed because they were cooked in maybe 1 tbsp of EVOO, a little bit of the red pepper sauce and 1/4 cup of chicken broth. One all the veggies were tender I added the Pasta, veggies and sauce in one pan over a low heat. they were cooked for 1-2 minutes to blend the flavors. I topped off the dish with some fresh basil, Parmesan cheese and a little bit of Mozzarella on top

This is what the final product looked like (notice the steam!):

It was so yummy! OMG i loved it. So as you can see these are not exactly diet food but they are cooked relatively well. What helped me was during dinner i was trying to feed Emma her rice cereal and eat my dinner. Needless to say she had way more of my attention.

Now if my food is not for you, you could try MY tyler's Ratatouille. He wanted to cook also!


This is the final product
Tomato soup base with Marshmallows and mushrooms. It is seasoned with a hint of rosemary, salt, pepper, and sugar. I am not sure what else he got his hands on and put in it!