Dinner
Fettuccine Amber
aka
Pasta a la Flopsy
Ingredients:
one box fettuccine
2 medium skinless boneless chicken breasts
2 red bell peppers
4 oz. sun dried tomatoes in oil w/ spices
1 shallot
2 cloves of garlic
16 oz. sun dried tomato Alfredo pasta sauce
16 oz. regular Alfredo pasta sauce
kosher salt
pepper
olive oil
canola oil
(optional) chopped parsley
Prep:
Have a pot with salted water ready for the pasta.
Heat your oven to 350 degrees F, and put a good oven safe frying pan in there to heat up.
Pour the two sauces together into another pot, cover, and heat on medium-low, stirring occasionally throughout.
Cut the stems off the peppers, clean out the seeds, then slice vertically into narrow strips, about 1/3" wide. Put the strips into a prep bowl.
Finely mince the garlic, and dice the shallots. Put them together into another prep bowl.
Slice the sun dried tomatoes into strips about 1/4" wide. Put them into a third prep bowl.
Rinse and pat dry the chicken breasts, then, on a clean plate, salt and pepper both sides, and drizzle canola oil over the breasts.
Cooking:
Once the oven hits 350, pull the oven safe frying pan out (careful, it's hot!) and immediately put it on a burner on high. Put the chicken on the pan, turning once when the bottom is browned nicely, about 4-6 minutes per side.
While the chicken cooks on the stovetop, take another large pan, and bring two teaspoons of olive oil up to temperature over high heat. Once that's hot, dump in the sliced peppers. Stir the peppers occasionally, but be sure to get some good caramelization. This takes about 12 minutes.
By now, both sides of the chicken should be nice and brown. Put an oven safe thermometer probe into the chicken (if you have one), and put the chicken back in the oven. Leave it in there until the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees F.
Put the pot of salted water on the stove, and start bringing that to a boil over high heat.
Once the pepper has caramelized, toss in a teaspoon of kosher salt, then dump in the sun dried tomatoes with the peppers, stirring well. Cover, and turn down to medium-low, cooking for about five minutes.
After five minutes, remove the cover, and toss in the chopped garlic and shallots, and bring the heat up to medium-high. Stir really well, as the shallots should start to soak up any oil left in the pan from the peppers and tomatoes. Let this cook for about five minutes, then turn down the heat to medium-low again.
By now, the chicken should be cooked through, so remove it from the pan, and let it rest on a plate (preferably a smaller plate inverted on a larger plate, so the juices drain away). Cover the chicken with aluminum foil. Turn off the oven.
Once the water is at a hard boil, add the fettuccine, and follow the directions on the box for cooking time (~12 minutes).
After the chicken has rested under the foil for at least five minutes, slice it evenly at about 1/2" thick. Add the slices to the pan with the vegetables, and stir until the chicken is well coated, raising the heat to medium. Ladle about 1/3rd of the mixed sauce from the pot into the veggie pan, and stir well until everything is evenly coated. Cover so that the sauce doesn't boil off.
When the pasta is done, drain it in a large colander, and turn off all the heat on the stove. Don't rinse the pasta.
Ladle another 1/3rd of the mixed sauce into the bottom of a large serving bowl. Dump the pasta from the colander into the serving bowl. Ladel the veggies-sauce-chicken mix on top of the pasta. Ladle the remaining sauce over the top of that. Garnish with some chopped parsley.
Serve with a nice red wine.