Kimberly's Journey: Where are the vegetables?

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Where are the vegetables?

Today, my southwest mom, Angie, calls me up and says she is making the vodka sauce...'you guys sure eat a lot of pasta' she tells me...yes, indeed, I tell her...pasta is our friend! 'Did you guys eat much meat?' Well, not too much red meat, although I could probably eat carne asada every day. Kim did have one killer london broil recipe that I'll get to...we eat a lot of chicken, though - that's meat, right? 'How about fish?' Angie asks. Yes, fish tacos! I would grill the fish and Kim would make some incredible salsas - she had this mango one that just made the taco so juicy and sweet! Which reminded me, 'Angie! Vito has made a fish burrito with chipolte sauce that is incredible!'...I had one Friday and asked Vito why I should eat a burrito at an Italian restaurant...dumb question - try one at Viro's on 22nd and Sarnoff and you'll see! 'Well', Angie said, 'you'll get to eat a lot of those, Lent starts in just over a week!'. And then she dropped the hammer. "Dave, I notice that your recipes don't have a lot of vegetables"...yeh, uh, vegetables...Kim was always good about making sure she kept us well rounded and could make any vegetable taste good - even brussel sprouts! When we met, I ate virtually NO vegetables - just corn, potatoes and rice - which is largely what I still make today! 'Actually, Angie, that recipe Andrea gave me with the chicken, rice, peas and carrots - yes, there they are! Peas and carrots!!'...I think I posted this recipe before - let me know if I didn't, because it is a great one!
Despite the obvious victory of having put peas and carrots in one recipe, I promise Angie I will do better - and tonight, I made chicken marsala, arrborio rice and...wait for it....peas! Sometimes Kim would mix the peas directly into the arrborio rice, which was excellent - but I had already made the rice before Angie called, so I had to go back and make the peas separately...

Oh, and I did take this photo before Angie called, too, so the peas came later...honestly!

To make this delight, take 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts and pound them as flat as you can. Melt 1 tlb of butter and 1 tlb of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, put the chicken in and brown them on both sides. Remove the chicken - put them aside for now.

Add 1 tlb of olive oil to the skillet. Add 1 large shallot, finely chopped (or about 1/2 cup of red onion would work nicely!) and 2-4 cloves of minced garlic. Saute these for about 30 seconds. Add another tlb of olive oil if too dry. Add a 1 to 2 cups of sliced mushrooms and saute until tender. Add a punch of salt. Pour in 1/2 cup of Marsala cooking wine. Simmer about 2 minutes. Pour in 3/4 of chicken broth and a fresh rosemary sprig (out here, you can just pick one from someone's front yard!). Simmer another 3-4 minutes. Return the chicken to the skillet until cooked through, turning to coat. Mangia!

This was a great one Kimmy would tantalize us with. At work, they are concerned with the amount of weight I've lost. Well, I tell them, I no longer drink soda, don't eat many sweets, as I do not bake...yet and get a little more excercise - a new program - Zumba, you ask? No, Bambinicise! So, one of the managers, Jaime, made me a red velvet cake Wednesday, and Regina, the Foothills Mall manager, made me the largest batch of chocolate chip cookies I've ever seen! "It's a long weekend Dave - your family will eat them all"...and, sure enough, we do have them on the run!

Of course, Kim made everyday a food fest...so I'm bound to lose some weight...but, as the kids started a 4 day weekend, I found myself in the kitchen the entire day...! We picked up Lexy (freshly back from an amazing class fieldtrip to San Diego...lucky!) and Breanna around 10, came home and I made breakfast burritos with bacon, eggs and hashbrowns...for lunch, I whipped up a batch of the chicken and rice I mentioned above (hah! We had peas TWICE today!!!)...once the kitchen was clean, I began prepparing the marsala -all of the kids ate great today! Well, Cody skipped out on dinner - Amy, Tom and Alex took him to Red Lobster! Good excuse! Then, we settled in to watch the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" with Nicolas Cage - pretty good - the kids gave it a thumbs up!