Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Pomodoro for a quick family meal

Simple pomodoro sauces are fun. The term 'pomodoro' seems to apply to any sauce made from fresh sauteed tomato, but I like the ones where you merely dice the tomato, leaving it chunky.

This week we grilled some chicken in advance and have it handy for several recipes. So last night I made this deliciousness. It was quick to make and pretty low key. I was happy with how the timing worked out. It was almost a one-dish meal:

Boiled some angel hair
Diced and sauteed a third of an onion, in generous amounts of olive oil
Added some powdered garlic because we were inexplicably out of fresh cloves. This sped the whole dish up quite a bit because peeling and chopping the garlic is usually one of the most time-consuming steps.
Diced a tomato and added that to the onion.
Stirred the tomato as needed. The goal is to get it all lightly cooked.
Added a little Parmesan to the onion/tomato
Had my 13 year old chop some broccoli to bite size pieces and put it in an casserole dish
When the angel hair was ready, removed it with tongs to a bowl and drained, saving most of  the water
Tossed a handful of Parmesan in with the angel hair
Diced and briefly microwaved 1 grilled chicken breast
Combined the onion/tomato mixture in large bowl with the angel hair and tossed
Chopped some fresh basil and added
Added the chicken breast and tossed some more
On feedback from my lovely wife, added more olive oil and salt and tossed some more
Poured the hot pasta water into the dish with the broccoli and let that stand a few minutes to very lightly cook it
 Served pasta with broccoli as side dish.

The result is a light dish that's still mostly pasta. The lightness of the sauce helps sell it to my kids. And so far it's been a spouse-pleaser every time.

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