Today is the first official day of fall, so that means the time for soups, stews and hearty foods is upon us. This recipe for a cozy chicken vegetable soup is perfect for getting the soup-eating season started. It calls for store-bought rotisserie chicken and low-sodium chicken broth, which provide time saving short-cuts, while the use of fresh vegetables, herbs and spices still give the soup great homemade flavor.

In this recipe I used green beans, peas, carrots, corn and potatoes, but you can just as easily try other vegetables such as broccoli or diced bell peppers. You can also add in some cooked rice at the end for an even heartier dish. Experiment with various herbs and spices as you wish. Using the simple base of chicken broth and pulled chicken gives you room to explore many options. Enjoy!

Chicken Vegetable Soup
Serves 6 – 8

3 tbs extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp cumin seeds
1 Liter of low-sodium chicken broth (4 cups)
6 c water
5 – 6 small red potatoes, quartered
5 – 6 large carrots, peeled and coined
1/2 lb. string beans cut into 1” pieces
1 cup frozen peas
Fresh corn from 4 ears, shucked and cut off the cob
1 whole rotisserie chicken, skin removed and meat pulled
3 – 4 bay leaves
1 tbs dried Italian seasoning
1 tsp paprika
1 – 2 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp ground all spice
1 tbs kosher salt, plus more or less to taste
Fresh ground black pepper
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped

Skin and pull apart the meat from the whole rotisserie chicken and set aside. Cut the larger pieces of meat down to bite-size. Heat oil in a large soup pot over medium heat, add in cumin seeds. When the seeds begin to sizzle, add in the chicken broth and water and bring to a boil. Add in all of the vegetables, except for the corn and peas, and add in the Italian seasoning, bay leaves, paprika, all spice, coriander and salt.

Allow the pot to come back up to a boil before adding in the pulled chicken, corn, peas, and pepper. Reduce heat to medium or medium-low and simmer for about 20 – 25 minutes. Add in the fresh parsley and taste for seasoning. Simmer for another 5 – 10 minutes or until root vegetables are tender. Serve hot with toasted French bread or crackers.

Cream sauce – it’s something I limit in my diet to “on occasion” status. Well, this past weekend was an occasion to purchase the heavy cream. Not for any special reason, but simply because the recipe I saw Giada De Laurentiis make on the Cooking channel looked really delicious.

Wanting to try out her recipe for chicken scallopine with saffron cream sauce, I made a variation adding cumin and mustard seeds. The result is a wonderfully fragrant dish that’s slightly reminiscent of Indian cuisine, yet with dry white wine maintaining classic Western flavor.

I served my spiced cream sauce and chicken over fresh baby spinach; however, an option I tested as well is to add the spinach into the cream sauce along with the chicken during the last 5 minutes of simmering. The chicken and sauce will also work well over angel hair pasta. Enjoy!

Chicken Scallopini in Spiced Cream Sauce over Spinach
Adapted from Giada De Laurentiis’ Chicken Scallopine with Saffron Cream Sauce

1 lb chicken cutlets (about 2 thin cut chicken breasts)**
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 tbs olive oil
1 shallot, peeled and sliced thin
2 plump garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 cup white wine
1-1/2 cup vegetable or chicken broth
1 large pinch of saffron (about 1/4 tsp)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp salt, plus more for seasoning chicken
Freshly ground black pepper
6 oz. fresh baby spinach

Rinse and pat chicken dry before seasoning with salt and pepper. Place flour in a large Ziploc bag and season with 1/4 tsp salt. Place chicken cutlets in bag and shake well. Remove chicken from the flour shaking off the excess and place flour-dredged chicken aside.

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat, add olive oil and heat for about 1 minute. Add chicken cutlets and brown on one side for about 3 – 4 minutes before turning chicken over to brown the other side for another 3 – 4 minutes. Remove browned chicken from the pan and set aside under aluminum foil.

Add garlic and shallots to the pan and sauté for about 2 minutes (don’t let garlic burn). Add mustard and cumin seeds and continue to sauté for another 2 minutes. Add white wine, broth, and saffron scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen all of the flavor bits from the chicken. Simmer for about 10 minutes allowing wine and broth to reduce.

Add heavy cream, fresh cracked black pepper, and stir before adding the chicken back to the pan and simmering for another 5 minutes. Serve chicken over fresh or steamed spinach along with several spoons full of the cream sauce. Garnish with chopped parsley.

** Note: Scallopini (Scallopine) means thinly sliced chicken breast or chicken breast butterfly-cut and pounded thin usually between two pieces of plastic wrap using a mallet. My store-bought chicken cutlets were thin enough, so I skipped the step of pounding them thin.

Several months ago, I helped plan a baby shower for one of my close friends and came up with these Cajun chicken skewers for the menu. I thought they would be a good accompaniment to the crawfish pie one of our other friends from Louisiana was bringing to the shower.

Once again, my Staub grill pan came in handy. I love this caste-iron treasure because of its extra high ridges that deliver lovely grill marks. Yes, taste and nourishment are most important with food, but appearances play an almost equally important role. As the culinary saying goes, you eat with your eyes first.

Rubbing my chicken breast first with a Cajun spice blend, I then grilled them for about 8 minutes on each side. Smoked turkey links was my sausage of choice for the skewers pictured due to cost-effectiveness for the amount I was making, but I recommend using Cajun chicken sausage or Andouille sausage to add more of that Louisiana flavor. These skewers are perfect to serve for party finger food that’s filling. Enjoy!

Cajun Chicken Skewers

4 – 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 tablespoons Cajun seasoning (I used this one.)
2 large green bell peppers
2 large red bell peppers
4 pre-cooked sausage links (smoked turkey, Cajun or andouille)
Kosher salt

Rinse and pat dry chicken. Slice the sausage links into rounds and chop peppers into 1″ squares. Preheat a large grill pan on medium-high heat. Liberally rub chicken breasts with Cajun seasoning blend and place chicken on the grill. Allow to cook for about 8 minutes on one side before turning over to grill on the other side, lowering heat to medium, and grilling for an addition 8 minutes. Once the chicken is done, allow it to sit for five minutes before cutting into chunks for your skewers.

Grill vegetables and sausages (you can do this in the same pan with the chicken or separately) and then set aside for a minute or two until they are cool enough to handle. Once your vegetables, sausage and skewers are cooked and cool enough to handle, assemble your skewers alternating between pieces of chicken, peppers, sausage, peppers and chicken. Placed finished skewers in an oven-safe pan, cover with foil, and place in oven at 200 degrees F until ready to serve.

Who’s the best cook in the family out of my large group of cousins on my dad’s side? This was the question supposedly answered by my cousin Allen who claimed he held the crown and title. I don’t know about that, but he did come up with a good combination of herbs and seasonings for a delicious, juicy turkey burger.

If you’re looking for a good recipe to help kick-off the grilling and barbeque season, I definitely recommend Allen’s juicy turkey burgers. As long as you use ground turkey thighs or ground turkey breast no leaner than 97/3, you should have a tasty burger.

I have tasted turkey burgers, plenty unfortunately, that taste like cardboard, and that’s basically because they were either overcooked or didn’t have enough fat in them. Yes, while overall we want to decrease the amount of saturated fat in our diets, turkey burgers need some fat or else you’re going to get that cardboard taste.

In addition to using the right kind of ground turkey, the egg and breadcrumbs also help make the burgers moist.  A seasoning combination of dried herbs of dill, tarragon, parsley and sage along with my addition of onion and garlic powder in place of all-purpose seasoning, all make up Allen’s tasty recipe. I was quite impressed, and I think you will be too. Enjoy!

Allen’s Turkey Burgers
Serves 4

1 pound ground turkey thighs
1/8 teaspoon dried tarragon leaves
1/4 teaspoon dried dill
1/4 teaspoon dried parsley
1/4 teaspoon ground sage
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 large egg
1/4 cup bread crumbs
Fresh cracked black pepper

In a large bowl, add the ground turkey and spices, and mix to combine. Then, add the egg and bread crumbs and combine further. Heat a non-stick grill pan over medium to medium-high heat. In the meantime, form four patties with your mixture.

Lightly spray the grill pan with cooking spray and place your patties on the grill cooking for about 7 minutes on one side before flipping and cooking for an additional 7 – 8 minutes until done. Serve on whole grain buns or on what Allen recommends – Pepperidge Farm Deli Flats.

My Mom’s side of the family makes the best cornbread dressing, hands down – at least according to my taste buds. And yes, we say dressing not stuffing, we’re from the South. It’s so interesting how different regions and families have different food traditions for the same dish. I recently discovered that some folks have only seen dressing served mashed/fluffed or in a mound rather than in squares the way my family and nearly everyone in my parents’ hometown serves it.

So what makes our dressing so good? I believe it’s due to the variety of flavors that come from the sage and various herbs in the poultry seasoning. The sweet cornbread base, as well as the moisture from just the right amount of delicious broth are also key. These are all common, basic ingredients in dressing, but there’s still just something special to me about our dressing! 

Perhaps it’s the nostalgia from having that same great consistent taste no matter whether it’s my grandmother’s or great aunt’s dressing, which we devoured several times a day for several days each Thanksgiving and Christmas years ago, or whether it’s from the modern kitchens of my aunts and mother. Overall, I think our memory of how it’s supposed to taste is what allows us to get it right every time.

Despite the culinary tradition our cornbread has in our family, I made the bold move to change it up just a little bit by adding some diced apple and chopped pecans (fall flavors I love). I also made my cornbread base from scratch instead of relying on the ole’ handy Jiffy Mix.

Usually we make our dressing by taste and look alone (no measurements), but as I made my version to share with you, I measured most of the ingredients. Still, you have to rely on your own judgment to get the seasoning just how you like it. That’s the great part about cooking — the flexibility to come up with your own flavor traditions. Enjoy!

Apple-Pecan Cornbread Dressing

1 eight inch square pan of sweet cornbread (recipe below)
3 -4 cups herb-seasoned stuffing mix (regular, not cornbread based)
1 celery stalk, very finely diced
1 small yellow onion, finely diced
3 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted (1 stick) 
3/4 cup diced, peeled apple (about 1/2 large apple)
1 cup toasted pecans, roughly chopped
1-1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon black pepper, plus more to taste
2-1/2 cups turkey or chicken broth (plus more to drizzle)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Crumble cornbread in a very large bowl. Add stuffing mix, celery, onion, sage, poultry seasoning, diced apple, pecans, salt and pepper; mix well. Add melted butter and broth and mix well again. Taste the dressing mixture for flavor and add additional salt, pepper or poultry seasoning if needed.

Spoon mixture into two lightly greased 8″ square baking pans and smooth evenly. Bake for 45 minutes or until top of dressing is golden brown and an inserted knife comes out clean.

Cornbread

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup whole milk
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8″ square baking pan with butter or cooking spray and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine the wet ingredients. Add the wet ingredients into dry ingredients and fully combine using a rubber spatula. Pour the batter evenly into the pan and bake for 30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Last week I served this tasty pulled chicken sandwich along side my bowl of butternut squash soup. With the weather getting cooler and cooler these days, hot soup and warm sandwiches are ideal for weeknight meals and leftovers to take for lunch. So what makes this sandwich or any sandwich for that matter tasty and more than just the standard luncheon meat on bagged sliced bread like the kind I grew up on (think bologna or ham and cheese)? The answer’s very simple … the bread and the extras.

I’ve found that simply making your sandwich with fresh baked bread from a bakery can add a new dimension of flavor to your sandwiches if you’re used to making sandwiches at home with your regular packaged bread. My favorite bakery breads to use for sandwiches include wheatberry, rosemary Italian or foccaccia, sunflower or multi-seed boule (like the one I used for the photos here), or ciabatta. Also, I like to buy the bread whole rather than have it sliced at the bakery. I read the tip somewhere that slicing the bread as you need it allows it to keep longer than if you have it pre-sliced, and I’ve discovered that to be true.

The extras that I speak of, another key to good homemade sandwiches include breaking out of the jar of your simple mayo spread. Instead, add a little extra flavor by using pesto or avocado as a spread on your sandwiches or mixing in seasonings to your mayo. For this pulled chicken sandwich, I added one minced clove of garlic with fresh ground black pepper to my mayonnaise and those additions alone elevated the “deliciousness” of my sandwich. You can also try dried herbs, a splash of lemon juice, or a diced sun-dried tomato. Be creative, and enjoy!

Pulled-Chicken Sandwich with Garlic Mayo

1 loaf fresh baked bread of your choice
2 – 3 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
Pulled chicken from one roasted or rotisserie chicken
Green leaf lettuce
Vine-ripened tomato, sliced
Thin-sliced red onions (optional)
Garlic mayo (see recipe below)

Drizzle olive oil over one side of two slices of the fresh bread and lightly toast in the oven under the broiler, remove from oven and set aside. On the untoasted sides of the bread, spread a thin layer of garlic mayonnaise and top one slice with pulled chicken. Then sprinkle chicken with a little pepper. Add lettuce and a few tomato and red onion slices. Top with the other slice of toasted bread and cut sandwich on a diagonal. Serve with hot soup.

Garlic Mayonnaise

1/4 cup quality mayonnaise
1 clove garlic, finely minced (almost to a paste)
2 dashes of fresh ground black pepper

Mix the finely minced garlic and pepper well into the mayo and use on bread for sandwiches or as a dip for fresh vegetables or (eek!) … fries.

Until this past weekend, I never realized just how beautiful the Virginia countryside is. Last fall I took a trip to Culpeper, VA with a friend to visit their cute shops and pick apples. We had such a great time that I wanted to share the experience with some of my family members. So this past weekend I, my parents, a cousin and several aunts and uncles took an overnight trip to Culpeper and Madison counties for a few farm and winery tours. Blessed with sunny and pleasantly crisp fall weather, we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and as we took the “back” roads from place to place, the sights of the wide open and beautifully manicured fields accented with wooden fences and gorgeous homes added to our enjoyment.

Culpeper County was having their official Fall Harvest Farm Tour, and although we didn’t include all 12 site visits on our trip, we made it to several including a few unofficial stops to two wineries and to Graves Mountain Farm for apple picking. Between the nine of us, we left the orchard with about 10 or 11 boxes of apples – staymen, red delicious, golden delicious, fuji, and granny smith. So needless to say, a few of my upcoming posts will include apples!

First up, apple pecan chicken salad. I’ve wanted to feature chicken salad for a while because it’s always great for using up leftovers from roast chicken (waste not). In addition, it’s also good to make when you’re short on time or want to make a batch to last you for enough lunches or afternoon snacks through the week. Just simply buy a whole roasted or rotisserie chicken from the supermarket – a great short cut.

The Corner Bakery has a delicious chicken salad that includes apples and currants, so along with the apples I picked, that is the inspiration for this recipe. The sweetness and crunch of the apples add a pleasant taste to this chicken salad, and my favorite flavor note in this recipe comes from the toasted pecans. So enjoy, and take a look back at my apple recipes from last fall – apple pecan salad with apple cider vinaigrette (apple pecan is a great flavor combo) and apple crisp.

Apple Pecan Chicken Salad

1 whole roasted or rotisserie chicken (4 – 5 pounds),  shredded or well chopped into small pieces
1 stalk celery, finely diced
1 cup diced apple
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon quality mayonnaise
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
2 light dashes smoked paprika
1/4 cup dried currants
1/2 cup pecan halves, toasted and roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
Fresh cracked black pepper to taste

Toast the pecan halves in a small sauté pan over medium low heat. Remove pan from heat once the pecans become fragrant (about 3 – 4 minutes). Allow pecans to cool slightly, then chop.

Working piece by piece (breast, legs, thighs, wings) and with your hands, separate the meat from the bones and chop the meat of the cooked chicken up into small pieces, then add it to a large bowl. Add the celery, diced apple, currants and half of the salt, thyme, paprika and some fresh ground black pepper along with the mayonnaise and stir well with a rubber spatula to combine.

Add the remaining half of salt, thyme and paprika along with the chopped pecans and stir to combine once more. Taste for additional salt and pepper. Serve apple pecan chicken salad on bread as a sandwich or with crackers or toasted bread. 

The classic backyard-bbq comes standard with smoky beef burgers and hotdogs. While these summer mainstays will likely never go out of style, you might want to provide options for yourself and your guests and add the increasingly popular turkey burger to your menu.

Turkey burgers can either be great or horrible — easily. Without good seasoning and at least some fat, your burgers might come off the grill tasting more like cardboard than anything tasty. But, with a few additional ingredients and a little more attention than you would give to beef burgers you can overcome the dry-turkey-burger challenge.

When making turkey burgers, you’ll want to use ground turkey that is at least 97/3 (as in 3% fat). Stay away from 99% lean ground turkey, which is more likely to dry out. Ground turkey that includes turkey thighs is even better if you’re striving for the juiciest turkey burger you can make. I used 97/3 ground turkey for this recipe and the juiciness of the burgers was pretty good.

I recently came back from a visit to the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health where they have very tasty and healthy food, and when I returned home, I went on their website to take a look at their recipes. That’s where I discovered their recipe for sun-dried tomato turkey burgers, which inspired me to write this post. My recipe, containing fewer ingredients, is a little simpler than theirs.

The chopped, sun-dried tomatoes add a few bright notes of flavor throughout the burger and the sautéed shallots and flat-leaf parsley add to the flavor as well. As with any burger, whether you’re cooking the burgers on the grill or on the stovetop in a pan, you’ll want to be sure not to overcook it (otherwise get ready for a dry burger).

Do you have any other tips or ways to make tasty turkey burgers? One of my cousins adds ground chicken sausage to his, which is another way to add good flavor.

Sun-Dried Tomato Turkey Burgers
Adapted from a recipe by the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health
Makes about 4 – 5 burgers

1.3 pounds of lean ground turkey (no leaner than 97/3)
1 shallot, finely diced
1 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
4 olive oil-soaked sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped
2 clove garlic, minced
1 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Fresh ground black pepper

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a small pan over medium heat; add shallot and sauté for about 1 minute or so. In a large bowl, add ground turkey, sautéed shallot, and remaining ingredients. Stir with a fork to mix well. Break off a handful (about the size of a baseball) of seasoned ground turkey at a time and form 4 to 5 burger patties. Cook over a grill or in a pan on stovetop over medium to medium-high heat.

To cook by stovetop, set patties aside and heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large non-stick pan. Add patties to the pan being sure not to overcrowd the pan. You may have to cook two patties at a time depending on the size of the pan. Cook on one side for about 3 – 4 minutes and then flip patties to cook on the other side for another 4 minutes. Flip once more to cook for an additional 2 minutes.

Check one patty for doneness. If it’s not done, cook a little longer. Let burgers rest for a few minutes before serving on burger buns with lettuce, tomatoes and your other favorite burger toppings.

On my journey to becoming a real cook (see definition below) I rely on a variety of tools – questions to other cooks, classes, cooking shows, reading and journaling. Since I didn’t grow up at my mother’s side everyday learning the ins and outs of cooking (in this day and age very few people have had that fortune), these tools help me catch up.

Journaling is a wonderful tool that can be used for many purposes, and cooking is just one activity I apply it to. In addition to keeping my cooking journal, I have a dance and yoga journal, as well as a personal reflections journal.

Real Cook n.  
1. A cook with an old school style, yet modern flare.

2. Someone who prepares food from scratch using fresh, quality ingredients and rarely relies on boxed and canned processed foods. A real cook can quickly make a tasty meal due to the skill acquired from years of practice. The real cook knows timesaving shortcuts as well as how to fix mistakes, measure by sight, and make adjustments based on taste and experience. She or he knows ingredients and can taste something and tell you exactly what’s in it.

In my cooking journal I keep track of recipes that I’ve tried and write notes on what to do or not do the next time I make the dish. In other words, I write down what I learned from that particular cooking experience.

 For example, the last entry in my journal was for an herbed cornbread recipe. What did I learn and write down to remember next time? Add two additional tablespoons of sugar, remember to let the melted butter cool before adding it to the eggs, and bake a few minutes less than the recipe states. You can also keep these kind of notes on the paper the recipe is written on (which may be in a book), but I find keeping such notes in a journal more appealing.

In addition to recipe notes, I write down recipe ideas, thoughts about something I tasted that I want to remember, as well as any thoughts or things to remember that I come across while watching a cooking show, reading an article or blog post or attending a food or wine expo. 

Honestly, I don’t diligently write a journal entry for everything I make and not even always for every new recipe I try. Keeping a journal doesn’t have to be another chore on your already long list of things to do, but  it can provide you with a useful reference as you explore and build your repertoire of dishes.  And years from now once you feel that you’ve arrived, you can pass your cooking journal down to someone – a son or daughter, niece or nephew for instance – to help them on their journey to becoming a real cook. Just think of the wealth of information you would have if you had a cooking journal from your grandmother or great-aunt.

Another one of my latest entries in my journal is for Spicy Sausage and Rice. This is an easy recipe I wrote. Serve it with a side vegetable and you’ll have a quick weekday meal. Try it out to get you started with your first journal entry.

Do you already keep a journal of some sort? How do you keep your recipe notes? Better yet, do you have a collection of old family recipes with hand written notes? Leave a comment below and let me know about it!

Spicy Sausage and Rice
Serves 4

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 small onion, diced
3 – 4 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and finely diced
1/2 teaspoon Cajun seasoning
2 tablespoons tomato sauce (from 8 oz. can)
2 cups water
4 spicy sausage links (12 oz. package of fully-cooked spicy sausage: turkey, chicken, beef or pork. I prefer chicken or turkey. Use Italian, Andouille or some other spicy sausage)
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup rice

Heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onions, garlic and jalapeño pepper and sauté for 2 – 3 minutes. Add Cajun seasoning and sauté for 1 minute more stirring occasionally. Stir in tomato sauce and sauté for another minute stirring constantly. Add water, sausage and salt and bring to a boil. Once boiling, stir in rice. Once water comes back up to a boil, place heat on low, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and sit aside, covered for 5 minutes. Fluff rice and sausage with a fork and serve.

Have you had enough chocolate yet? Well there’s more to come from me this month, but for now I’ll give your sweet tooth a break and share a recipe for a light entrée you can try just in case you had too many desserts this past weekend or have been eating heavy meals a little too much during the past several weeks. I’ve had a few recent requests for a “low-cal” dish, so here’s my response (also, check out the Light & Tasty category in the right sidebar for additional recipes).

This chicken and broccoli entrée serves as a light meal on its own and no other side dishes are really needed. The extra-virgin olive oil and butter (yes, butter … a little won’t hurt you) give it flavor along with the minced garlic and red pepper flakes; however, if you have kids or finicky folks in the house, it might not go over too well –- so try it out and see. If they boycott the dinner table, you can always make (or buy I suppose) an Alfredo sauce to go over it, but then again, it wouldn’t be “low-cal.”

This dish definitely makes a good and fairly quick lunch as well as a light dinner. I still think I need to fine-tune the cooking times and measurements of this recipe a little more, so I plan to try it a few more times and update the recipe below. However, what I’ve written here will work for you and is basically the process I followed when I first developed the recipe. Enjoy!

Chicken and Broccoli with Whole Wheat Pasta

2 cups whole wheat fusilli pasta (corkscrew)
1 red bell pepper cut into thin 2” long strips
1 bunch broccoli (about 4 stalks), use florets only
1-1/2 pound of chicken breast cutlets cut into 1” pieces
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons butter (you can substitute with an additional 3T olive oil)
1 large garlic clove, minced
1/2 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese (plus more for garnish)
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Bring a large pot of salted water (use 1 teaspoon salt) to a boil. Bring another large pot of salted water (2 teaspoons) to a boil. As water is coming to a boil, fill a large bowl (big enough to hold the broccoli florets) with water and ice to create an ice bath.

Add rinsed broccoli florets to first pot of boiling water and let water come back to a boil and continue to cook until broccoli turns bright green (about 3 – 4 minutes). Quickly drain the broccoli and then add the florets to the ice bath for 1 – 2 minutes to stop the cooking process. Drain broccoli from ice bath and set aside. Note: Don’t allow broccoli to sit in the ice bath until you’re ready to use it. It can dilute the flavor of the broccoli.

Add pasta to second pot of boiling water and boil for 6 – 8 minutes. Test a piece of pasta for doneness. Drain and set aside.

In a large sauté pan heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter over medium heat. Add garlic and dried red pepper flakes and sauté (stirring) for 1 minute. Add chicken pieces and cook on one side for 3 minutes, turn pieces over and cook for an additional 4 – 5 minutes stirring occasionally.

Add bell pepper strips, pasta, and broccoli. Drizzle another tablespoon of olive oil over everything in the pan, and add cut up pieces of the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter throughout the pan. Sauté everything together for another 7 minutes. Add cheese and gently toss with the pasta, broccoli, chicken, and bell pepper.  Salt and pepper to taste. Serve with additional grated parmesan if desired.