Going from cooking for three, plus needing leftovers for lunches, to cooking for one has been a difficult journey for me. I really enjoyed cooking for my guys and have to admit miss it immensely. When I first moved to Corpus Christi, I knew that I didn't want to become one of those women who ate standing over the kitchen sink or gained weight due to eating out for every meal. However, I found myself doing exactly that my first two months down here and knew that it needed to stop. At first, I did the making a meal that served four to six and stashing leftovers in my freezer. That didn't last long. I live in an apartment and the freezer space is limited.
My way to do this accomplish this was to return to what I did best in Illinois. I returned to meal planning. I took it a step further and started researching cookbooks for two and converting some of my favorite Allrecipes recipes into two servings and developing a recipe binder specifically for one to two serving dishes. I already have six binders on all kinds of recipes, so what was one more binder! Allrecipes also has a nice selection of Cooking for One or Two recipes that became part of my recipe box on the site.
Next, I did an Amazon search for cookbooks specifically for smaller servings. I was amazed at what I found after ordering a couple of them, I saw the cookbook One Pan, Two Plates: More Than 70 Complete Weeknight Meals for Two by Carla Snyder. The book was $1.99 for the ebook, so I grabbed it. It was less than a latte that I get, so what the hell? Plus, I could return it if it stunk really bad. I have to say that it was the best $1.99 I have spent. I had only wished I had purchased the paperback copy because I don't take my tablet into my kitchen.
This was one of the recipes from the book. If I had changed anything about the recipe, I would have added more spinach. Now, I am a spinach fiend and just thought this didn't have enough. I also thought that I would have liked it if I would have thrown in some zucchini, I think this recipe could have pulled it off. As I am trying to cut down significantly my meat intake, I only used one chicken breast and thought it was fine. One of my regrets is that I also decreased the amount of lemon and wish I would have used the full amount called for in the recipe.
Let me throw in that I had the leftovers for breakfast the next day and double yum! The flavors melded together beautifully. This will definitely be a repeater!
So, here we go!:
Ingredients:
10 oz FRESH linguine
2 T. Olive Oil
1 small onion, thinly sliced
2 boneless, skinless chicken breast, chunked
Coarse ground pepper
5 oz bag baby spinach
1 cup Feta cheese
1/3 cup FRESH SQUEEZED lemon juice (none of that concentration garbage)
Red Pepper flakes (optional, I didn't use them)
Directions:
1) In a 12 inch pot that can double as a frying pan, add water, salt (as indicated on package) and olive oil. Add linguine when water is boiling. Cook as directed on package. Prior to draining it, grab 1/2 cup of the boiling water and set aside. Drain and do a quick rinse with cool...not cold water. This is to stop the cooking process, but not cool off the pasta.
2) In the pan, heat the olive oil to shimmering and add the onion. Cook for about 2 minutes or until almost cooked. Add the chicken and 1/2 t. of salt and a dash of the pepper. Sauté the chicken until almost cooked through about 2 minutes. Add some of the reserved water to scrap up the bits. Add the spinach to the pan by handfuls and cook until wilted.
3) Return the pasta to the pan and add the feta cheese and lemon juice. Toss until well blended. If desired, add the red pepper for some heat. Divide onto plates and serve with garlic bread and salad.
This is a really simple, quick to throw together recipe that most people have the ingredients already in their freezer.
Enjoy! Let me know what you think.
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