recipe: chicken alfredo with red bell peppers

[jennickels]

So last night I had to come up with something for dinner for me and hubby.  Well, mostly for me.  I made boxed mac & cheese for the kids but I'm watching what I eat and even made with light margarine and skim milk it's too fattening for me.  So I rummaged through our limited supplies (fridge/freezer is looking kind of empty again) and came up with this:

It was so freaking good and the portions were huge.

the recipe:
10oz whole grain pasta (about 2/3 of a 13.25oz box)
1 1/2 cups frozen peas
1 can chicken (didn't have any chicken breasts left from dinner the other night so had to use canned), drained
1 can mushroom stems & pieces, drained
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1 tsp chopped garlic
1 red bell pepper, sliced
3 tbsp light margarine (I used I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Light)
1 cup nonfat half & half
1 cup nonfat milk (or just use all milk, I happened to have half & half left from another recipe)
2/3 cup finely shredded mozzarella cheese
1/3 cup finely shredded parmesan cheese blend
2 tbsp flour
garlic powder to taste
pepper

Pasta:
Bring large pot of water to boil.
Add frozen peas and dry pasta.
Cook until pasta is tender and peas are soft.
Drain, set aside.

Filling:
In a large frying pan melt 1 tbsp margarine.
Add mushrooms, onion and garlic.
Saute until onion is tender.
Add canned chicken and cook until warm.
Add bell pepper and heat on medium until the peppers are soft.
Toss with pasta.

Sauce:
In a small sauce pan melt 2 tbsp margarine.
Stir in flour to make paste.
Slowly stir in milk and half & half until smooth.
Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.
Add cheese, pepper and garlic powder.
Let cook on medium until sauce is slightly thickened and cheese melts.
Pour over pasta mix, toss and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

According to the package directions on the pasta 10oz of dry pasta is 5 servings.  So I did this recipe up at sparkpeople.com as 5 servings.  It came out to 445 calories and 10g of fat per serving.  But the servings are HUGE.  That's a lot of pasta.  That big bowl in the picture is supposed to be just 5 servings.  I had 2 bowls and my husband had 2 heaping bowlfuls and there's still another bowl and a half left.  I was stuffed.  This could easily feed our entire family of 7 (if my husband would watch his portions).  By making it for 8 it reduced the calories to around 300 and like 6g of fat per serving (I forget exactly how much it was).  Most of the fat comes from the cheese.  Everything else is basically fat free in it.

I can't wait to have more for lunch.

Next time I make it I'll have real grilled chicken in it (the canned was okay but it falls apart and gets stringy... much better for chicken salad sandwiches, lol, but I use it in a pinch in all sorts of stuff) and fresh mushrooms.  I would have used broccoli instead of peas but all we have left is peas, corn and stir fry veggies.  Maybe some zucchini and yellow squash either in addition or instead of the red peppers.  Both would be good.  My husband said this one is going in the family cookbook and expects it again, lol.  He thinks everything I make is the best thing he ever had.

Every time I make spaghetti he raves.  And it's just jarred sauce that I doctor up and toss with pasta.  I add canned, chopped tomatoes, canned mushrooms, chopped green peppers and onions and zucchini if I have it.  And either canned chicken or hamburger.  Stir in oregano, basicl and lots of garlic powder.  They all love it and act like it's something from a 5 star restaurant or something.  I don't like red sauce so I don't even eat it, lol.  I love it when they're easy to please.

Comments

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

I enjoy doctoring up "ready-made" stuff -- it's easy and makes people believe you slaved over the stove.

I add diced red bell peppers, black olives & crushed savory to Mac 'n' Cheese. And peas, tofu & bamboo shoots to Ramen noodle soup.

Mr. Campy adds pesto, olives, fresh portobello mushrooms, & sun-dried tomatoes to frozen pizza. Or similar ingredients to yours to spaghetti sauce.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

My mom was good at that. She loved to doctor recipes and ready to eat stuff to her own liking.

It just cracks me up that all I do is open a couple cans, chop a few veggies and my husband is going, "OMG this is the most amazing spaghetti sauce in the world." And it's just freaking Great Value generic plain sauce.

My mom was the kind of cook that did just about everything from memory. The recipes she used a lot would get edited each time as she tried a different little thing with them and she kept it all up in her head.

When I went off to college I called her about so many of them wanting to know how she made them and she'd be like, "oh, some of this, pinch of that, a little of blah, blah, blah." Nothing was measured or written down. She figured some of the measurements out for me and I learned to make them myself.

But when she died me and my dad realized just how many of those recipes she took to the grave. There's a few we've never been able to duplicate.

I tend to cook like her. I don't measure much (although I've started to recently with watching my weight since I can't really eyeball healthy amounts, lol). My recipes usually have lines that say, "add some rosemary, some sage, some onion." No measurements. I always add way more than a written recipe calls for anyway.

The only difference is I write my recipes down when I decide on some kind of standard for them (a version that was a hit) so the family doesn't have to go through what I did when my mom died trying to copy stuff from memories that are years old.

Man, I miss my mom. Friday marks 11 years since she died. Can't believe it's been that long.

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

So sad about your mom -- your kids are missing a wonderful grandma. :(

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That probably hurts the most. She would have been the best gramma ever. She was so excited when I was having Meagan. She had planned to come down and be at the hospital with me. Then 3 days before my c-section she called to tell me she couldn't come because she wasn't feeling right. Her left side had gone numb and she was feeling confused a lot. She said she had woke up the day before and couldn't remember how to dress herself. And that wasn't the first time. She had the same symptoms when I was in high school and they doctors did all sorts of tests and told her it was all in her head (morons). She was only in her mid-40s the first time so I guess no one wanted to think of the "S" word.

The last time my dad rushed her to the ER when she started acting disoriented and they immediately diagnosed a small stroke. She was 51. When I was in the hospital having Meagan she was back in Chicago in the hospital getting tests done. We chatted about crappy hospital food, lol.

When Meagan was 3 weeks old we moved in with my parents so we could find better jobs. Originally the plan had been for my mom to babysit so I could work, too, but with the stroke it wasn't really possible. She was terrified she would drop the baby or forget about her.

On August 16 I started a new job (my husband was also out of work which was a long story that involves my hatred for Wal-mart). When my husband picked me up that night I remember looking back and being hit with a feeling that I would never go back to that job, that something bad was going to happen. It was really strange and I just shook it off. I wasn't due back to work until the 18th because my mom was having surgery on the 17th.

The surgery was supposed to be "routine" to unblock one of the arteries in her neck that caused the stroke. That morning she got up early and I woke up just in time to wish her luck and tell her I'd wait until the next morning to come visit when she was out of recovery and feeling better. I didn't hug her, didn't say good-bye.

I never spoke to her again. I didn't hear anything from my dad the whole day so I assumed everything was fine. We went to bed and very early the next morning I got up and my dad was in the hall screaming at me about my mom. The hospital called and we had to get there right away.

I finally found out he never called because he was too busy watching my mom fight for her life. She had a massive stroke on the operating table. She woke up in recovery enough to mumble for water then slipped into a coma. They operated on her once more to relieve the pressure in her brain but by Friday she had almost no reflexes left. The only one was the eye touch (if you touched her eyeball her eyelids would flicker).

It was so awful.

On Saturday, August 19, 2000, they declared her braindead. I remember I finally lost it then. I thought I was going to be sick and had to rush into the bathroom to throw up.

My brother was a wreck. He hadn't seen her in over a year and hadn't talked to her in months. Then he gets the call from one of our cousins saying his mom is dying. He couldn't get a plane ticket home until another cousin bought an emergency one outright (it was expensive). He said he bawled the whole flight.

2000 was a crazy year for me. Starting with Christmas 99 when I found out my gramma died (that morning). Then her funeral a few days before New Year's. We got married in January, moved in with my in-laws in May, had Meagan in June, moved in with my parents in July, lost my mom in August. Oy. If it hadn't been for Meagan the whole year would have been a bust (the wedding was more stressful than anything and happened in the first week of the year, lol).

Sometimes it feels like forever since I've talked to her and other times I think she'll just call out of the blue, like it's only been a couple weeks. The first couple of years I found myself wanting to pick up the phone and call her any time one of the kids did something new. Sometimes I even reached for the phone before remembering she wasn't there any more. Those were the hardest times. It's gotten easier over the years but I miss her every day.

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

I like to think that those moments when you feel she's still here, it's actually her watching you through a Quantum Mirror from an alternate reality. :) And wanting so badly to tell you that she loves you and that everything's going to be okay.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

That made me cry.

I had so many people tell me, "well she's up in heaven now watching over you, she's your guardian angel." And I had to just grin and nod because it wasn't the time to get into a religious debate. I still found some comfort in the thought of her looking down even if I didn't believe it was true. It was the imagery I found comforting. It just bugged me that everyone just assumed I believed in a literal heaven. Made things harder.

I love the idea of the Quantum Mirror. That fits into my beliefs easily. I can totally get behind multiple universes before they idea of a god and heaven.

I think I'll sleep with that idea tonight. You totally made my day. This time of the year is always so hard. Either I'm subconsciously keeping extra busy so I don't think about it or I'm dwelling and feeling like crap.

Then November and her birthday rolls around. She never got to see 52. She was way too young to die. Two years ago her birthday fell on Thanksgiving and I was in the middle of cooking dinner and it just hit me that she was gone. I was trying so hard to make dinner like she always did and everything was going wrong and I felt like I failed her for some stupid reason.

I was right in the middle of mixing something and just burst into tears and ran from the room. My husband was flabbergasted. I cried myself to sleep for an hour then got up and finished cooking (what my husband and dad didn't get to). That was the hardest Thanksgiving/birthday I had. I'm crying now just thinking about it.

Thanksgiving was always my favorite holiday and hers, too, I think. I loved to help her cook it... as long as she didn't make me get up at o'dark thirty to put the turkey in, lol.

Quantum Mirror... that's how I want to imagine it from now on. In some parallel universe she's visiting us and spoiling the kids rotten and can't wait for Thanksgiving so she can give up the task of cooking to me and just enjoy her life. That's such a wonderful thought.

*can't see through the tears*

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

Oh jeez, I didn't want to depress you, but if dredging up sweet memories of your mom is a comfort, I hope it helps you when things get bad. ((HUGS))

I fervently believe that the truths of the universe fall somewhere between religious dogma and existential nihilism, and that the mind-bending, time-warping, space-distorting tenets of multiverse theory are neither supported nor refuted by the notion of a "heaven". So it's all good. I *must* exist beyond this clothing of flesh, and extend across alternate realities.

Call it a soul, or persistence of iteration, but if matter can't be created or destroyed, neither can your mom.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

Not depressed. Just sad. Kind of bittersweet--the memories. Sigh.

I always liked my mom's idea of heaven. She was a spiritual person but not religious (claiming none but considering herself a Christian).

She believed that heaven was whatever that one person believed it to be. So if that person imagined it to be clouds and pearly gates and god on a throne with angels playing harps with all their family around then that's what it would be.

If the person believed it was reliving the same perfect moment in life over and over that's what they got. I always like that idea.

I, personally, don't feel a need to imagine any heaven. I'm okay with dying and there being nothing after that.

[nymaeria.livejournal.com]

awww... i'm so sorry about your mom. that's so sad :(

it's cool, though, that you're keeping her memory alive by doing some of the special things she did (like doctoring the recipes) for your own family. In that way your kids get to experience some of the traits that were special about her, through you.

and on a separate note, it's nice that your hubby is so appreciative! i guess in his own way mine can be too, but he likes to cook too and to analyze everything to death ("needs more salt" "bake longer next time" etc etc) and he'll even do that out of habit when I've made something by myself. Sometimes I find myself thinking, "stop complaining and just eat it already!" lol!

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

That's how I see the "soul" or spirit... being passed down in the memories of the people you touched while alive. She lives on through me and my brother. :)

My husband can be great about some things. He loves just about everything I cook and doesn't care if the house is clean or not. He'd rather I be happy.

But, then again, he won't help clean house and drives me nuts with other stuff. It all evens out in the end. And I tend to criticize everything I cook. I can always see how I can make it better and since I don't follow recipes it's never the same twice, lol.

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