Oriental Grilled Chicken Pasta with Fresh Vegetables

Two elements played strong roles in this Friday Night's Challenge: hot weather and fresh vegetables. Both tended to serve the Challenge well. 


The hot weather sent me out the kitchen and onto the deck to the grill. This meant some pre-seasoning of the good things for tonight's menu. I decided to go oriental since a sesame taste was beckoning me.


I mixed up a marinade of canola oil, chili sesame oil, sesame oil, soy sauce, and a generous portion of ginger sesame spice.


Using some heavy-duty foil, I made a pocket and coated it with canola oil. Then I added in a layer of the first ingredient, chicken, that was coarsely chopped. I poured a bit of the marinade over this. For the next layer, I broke into 3 inch pieces whole wheat pasta, and poured a bit more of the marinade. I then added coarsely chopped zucchini, red bell pepper, tomatoes, and off the cob corn. 


Everything was put together on the grill. I wasn't too sure about grilling pasta, but with the natural juices from the veggies and the moisture of the chicken, it did just fine. It also nicely soaked up the mild sesame flavor.


Easy to do; easy to fix. Gotta love this time of year with all the freshness of our food...be sure to enjoy!

Friday Night Challenge: Tuscan Style Tuna on a Hot, Hot Day

When the heat index is in the 100s, all thoughts of heavy-laden foods go out the window. So with the ingredients offered in the Friday Night Challenge:

tuna, asparagus, sauerkraut, cheese, and tomatoes

I decided to steer clear of the Reuben-style solution in favor of a lighter, Tuscan-style meal that allows all the freshest flavors of the season do their thing.

The meal is very easy to make and, happily, very inexpensive. And--it's pretty!

I drained two cans of tuna until all traces of water were completely gone. Set aside. Roughly dice two Roma tomatoes and set them aside. I used frozen asparagus from this spring's garden that I brought to a boil for around 5 minutes and then rinsed in cold water in a colander until cool. Open a can of sauerkraut, drain, and then, in a colander, run cold water over and continuously wring out until much of the "bite" is gone. Mix together olive oil, a generous amount of dried basil (or if you have fresh chopped-great!), and some garlic powder. Pour this first over the kraut and let it sit for awhile while you're working with the other ingredients. 

Assemble the salad with the base of the kraut, then layer on the tuna and tomatoes. Next comes the asparagus. Finish with some freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Pour a bit more of the olive oil/basil/garlic mix over the combination. That's it!

Hot and humid days shouldn't keep us from enjoying great food; neither should a questionable economy.

Enjoy!

Tuscan tuna and a limmoncello martini--refreshing!

Spam Time! for the Friday Night Challenge

It seems the lines are clearly drawn when it comes to Spam--people either really like it or detest it. There's just not much area in between. I happened to be married to a nice guy that really likes Spam. Plain Spam, Spicy Spam, you name it--it's all good. So when it was time for a Friday Night Challenge, he asked if he could play along and name Spam for one of the ingredients. Well, of course! And so he did. The other four ingredients were:

Velveeta cheese, pineapple, water chestnuts, and avocado

It was way too hot to heat much up in the kitchen and what's nicer to have than a grill in the summer? So, with little hesitation, I coarsely chopped the avocado, the water chestnuts, and the Spam into bite-sized pieces. I kept the pineapple in slices--pineapple and a grill just really get along well, so why mess with what works? Once the avocado was tender and the rest of everything else warmed through and a bit caramelized, it was time to remove it from the grill and add some thin slices of pepper jack Velveeta and let it do some serious melting. 

My Spam man agreed it was pretty darned good!