Weekend Indulgences

We made it!  Not entirely a huge accomplishment, but we ate well as vegetarians this week and were rewarded with some burgers and bbq this weekend at a friend's.  It was a nice treat.  When we returned Sunday night we realized meat was still on the menu if we chose so I went with a pasta with chicken brown butter sage cream sauce.  The recipe came right out of my very own brain and it was completely delicious!

Ingredients
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1 tbsp olive oil
4-5 torn sage leaves
4 bone in chicken thighs
4 cloves garlic
1 medium onion
6 chopped mushrooms (brown or white)
3/4 cups milk (1%)
3/4 cup chopped zucchini (I used patty pans)
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 cup pecorino romano (or any hard cheese)
Salt and pepper
Enough pasta for 4 people. I used spaghetti.

Sautee onions in 1 tbsp of olive oil for about 5 minutes.  Add chopped mushrooms and cook for another 5 minutes.  Add whole bone-in chicken thighs and lower the heat.  Cook chicken thighs for about 7 minutes per side.  Meanwhile in another small pot melt butter on medium heat.  Once the butter is melted it will begin to brown, watch it carefully and as soon as it turns brown add torn sage leaves and fry for about 30 seconds.  Add the flour and cook for about 1 minute before whisking in milk.  Simmer milk and add chopped garlic cloves to the milk mixture.  Cook the milk mixture until thick and then add it to the pan with the chicken, onions and mushrooms.  Add red pepper flakes and zucchini to the pan and season with salt and pepper to taste.

While sauce is simmering with the chicken boil a pot of water for the pasta and cook until al dente.  Save about 1 cup of the cooked pasta water.  Drain the pasta and add the reserved cup of pasta water to the white sauce pan.  Mix well before adding the noodles to the pan.  Once everything is together in one pan, mix together well and cook for about 2 minutes so that the pasta can absorb all of the flavours.  Add the grated pecorino romano cheese and serve.

The sauce is creamy without being heavy and is a beautiful light brown colour.  This was a fantastic quick meal that I made with what I had on hand.  It was satisfying to eat such a great meal after traveling home from our weekend away and easy enough that I didn't feel like it was too much work.

This week it's back to school starting Tuesday and with 2 teachers in the house it should be a challenge to eat vegetarian only for school lunches and quick dinners.  I'll take today to brainstorm some fast and easy ideas.  Something tells me that with the enormous tub of kimchi in my fridge that it's going to be a Korean week.  Looking forward to it.