me make food

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Take a chicken bewb or two and smash them down to an even thickness between some cling wrap. You can moisten the inside and outside of the cling wrap with water to make it less sticky. it really seems to help.

Use the flat side of your smashy thing and not the toothed side. You do not want a puddle of destroyed chicken goop. You want a slightly smooshed and even thickness bewb. It is still going to rip the meat a bit, but not too bad. It does not need to be really thin, just evenly thick. You could use a can of food to do this, but use one with a smoothish bottom cuz one with a ring will hurt it bad.

schmashed good

These are the spices I used to make a cajun seasoning. I know there is cajun seasoning as one of my spices, but I still for some reason feel the need to add some single spices in there to make me happy that I am in control of this situation. Be careful with the cayenne though.

Coat the smooshed bewb with your seasoning really well. This is what is going to flavor the whole dish and the cream and the cheese are going to fight the spice and try to make it all dull so spice up that bewb good.

Put a pan on medium heat and let it get hot. I like to use stainless pans because I am going to be wisking it and it sure does look pretty. If you want to test how hot the pan is fling some water from your fingers and wait for a sizzle. After it is hot pour a bit of olive oil or cooking oil in there. You prob do not want to waste good olive oil Like I am doing in the above pic, but I like to live on the wild side. Just enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan. We are not deep frying. The oil should heat up pretty quick so go grab that bewb.

We are not trying to blacken this, just cook it. Burnt spices really do not taste good so monitor your heat. I end up going a bit below medium. If it is smoking you are way too hot. Check for doneness on the first side and flip once. Might need to add a bit more oil and the oil is going to absorb some of the spice and change colors. The 2nd side should cook pretty quick.

Once done pull off and let rest. I like to put it on a piece of foil I have crinkled up so it can drain the juices. I seal it and let it carryover while I work on the rest of the meal. You will slice it later and maybe find out that it is not all the way cooked. That is fine because it will be going back into the sauce when it is cut up and it will finish up no prob.

Pull the pan off the heat so the goodness does not burn off and cut up some garlic and sun dried tomatoes.

If your pan is still hot keep it off the burner and add the garlic and SD tomatoes to the pan. Might need to add a touch more oil. Scrape them around on all the golden fond in the bottom of the pan and lightly cook for a minute or two. We are talking med low or lower if you put it back on the burner. Burnt garlic and burning all the seasoning leavings is going to ruin the whole meal. The SD tomato and garlic will prob get coated in all the fond in the pan and look gross, but do not worry.

Now we are going to add some white wine to add flavor and get all the goodness out of the crap in the pan. You pan should not be hot so you do not need to worry about this steaming all over. Add enough to cover the stuff and then let this simmer down and reduce on close to medium heat for a few minutes.

How about we cut up some tomatoes for a pretty garnish. Are the necessary? Nope, but they look good.

For some reason I forgot to get a pic of my cut up chicken. grrrr… Oh well, cut it up how you want. I go for bite size pieces. If there are juices in the foil or plate make sure to add that back into the sauce. it is magical dripping I tell ya.

Add some heavy whipping cream to your reduced sauce and stir it around.

this would be a good time to boil the pasta of your choice.

Throw that chicken in the pan now and simmer close to medium to reduce that sauce. Unfortunately this is the part you just need to learn by doing it. Getting the sauce to the right thickness is a bit tough. The warmer it is the runnier it is going to be. By the time it is on the pasta and plate it will thicken up. Oh and you still have to add the cheese which will thicken it up more. if it seems thick in the pan add some more cream, stir, and pull.

Shred some parmesan cheese very fine. I use a microplane which makes the smallest little slivers of instant melt cheese.

Get that cheese in there and make sure you have a bit left over as garnish. it just looks nice darnit. Stir it up and melt it. Now is the time to decide if it is thick enough. You could let it simmer some more, but not too hot because the cheese might mess up on ya. You could throw the pasta in there too, or just pour over pasta.

Garnish and enjoy.

I hope you were not looking for a recipe with measurements and the like. I do not roll that way. Cooking from a recipe is important in baking, but experimenting it by doing it and tasting along the way is going to help you so much more than any recipe will for cooking. Plus I do not know how many people you are going to be feeding or how hungry you are. Hope you enjoy it if you try to make it. maybe put a spin on it and use shrimp or something.

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I was a little worried about putting too much spice on the chicken, so I went light on the cayenne and then added granulated garlic, paprika, salt, black pepper, and Penzey’s cajun seasoning. Instead of usinf a cast iron pan I cooked it in the pan I was going to build the sauce with so I could get all the flavorful fond in the sauce.

Almost burnt it, but in the end it did not matter. Pulled the chicken out and sliced it into chunks.

Threw some garlic and the sun dried tomatoes in for a minute and then deglazed with some white wine.

Added heavy whipping cream and the chicken chunks. Once it had reduced down to a nice sauce mixed in parm cheese and we poured it over some pene pasta.

Threw some more cheese on top and some diced tomatoes for garnish. It was delicious. Not exactly a healthy meal, but amazing. If I was going to try this without seeing how Guy did it, I would of made a bechemel for the sauce. This one was really easy and fast too. nom

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olive oil and a bit of clarified butter to cook the bewbs

for some dumb reason I put capers in there. They are pure evil. Oh some chicken stock and onions too.

then some cream and the zuchini bits

oh and the lemon juice and zest.

some bowtie pasta and hoped for the best. Was not horrible, but not good. The chicken was nice

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I put some black pepper and a mega pinch of salt in there to increase the flavor.

Cooked the noodles in some beef broth

Pulled the noodles, made the gravy, and seared up some beef slices. Bit of lite sour cream and it was ready.

Pretty darn good. Not a huge improvement though. I should of made them shorter and thinner, but was a good first time and too easy.

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Blanched the tomatoes to get the skins off, scooped out the seeds and goop, diced, and quartered the cherry tomatoes.

Seasoned some flour to dredge the chicken chunks in.

browned in some butter and olive oil.

Cut some garlic slices, added tomatoes, some olive oil, and some riesling to add some sweetness.

Added the chicken and pasta in and dished it up with some cheese sprinkled on top. Was a bit oily, which kinda made it not as healthy as I planned. We both thought it needed more of something, but not sure what. Was darn tasty though.

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used a separator to get the fat off

celery and carrots are done separately just in case. I let the pressure build and then release after 1 minute. Soft as heck.

did not pressure cook the noodles, just boiled. Add back the veg and chicken chunks and serve.

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Turned the heat off on the pan and let it cool down. Added some more olive oil, shredded garlic, lemon zest, some juice from the lemon, salt, and pepper to the pan to warm and infuse the flavor. The fond from the chicken added some good flavor.

cooked some linguine in not much water. Took 1/4 cup of the pasta water and added to the pan. Brought it to a simmer and reduced it. It made a slightly thicker sauce. Tossed in the pasta and a bit of parm cheese to coat the pasta.

The flavor was great and light. Did not use too much olive oil so it was not oily. We will try it again for sure and add some fresh basil for color and flavor.

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being the first attempt they still came out really good. Needed a bit more moisture and the chicken was hardly noticeable, but we will try some variation again.

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