Orecchiette Pasta with Chicken and Goat Cheese

For the last 2 months we’ve been having a particular chicken dish at least once a week and still love it, haven’t gotten tired of it at all.

Here’s what we’ve been making - Orecchiette Pasta  with Chicken and Goat Cheese.    It’s pretty simple to make and real tasty.  We first had this dish at the Nordstrom’s Bistro at Easton back in 2003 or so.  It was a simple, almost elegant dish with a lot of flavor, and was the first time we had had goat cheese.  A few years later, I saw goat cheese in the grocery store, remembered that dish and decided to recreate it at home.  It turned out to not be a difficult task at all.  Here’s how I do it:

Ingredients (for 3 servings):

Orecchiette Pasta , 8 oz.  (Reserve a ½ cup of the cooking water!)

Chicken broth, ½ cup

Goat cheese, 4 oz. (I’ve been using Kroger Private Select crumbles, < $3)

Mrs. Dash® Tomato Basil Garlic Seasoning Blend

2 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (about 1 lb)

Salt

Pepper

Garlic powder

Cayenne pepper

Paprika

Method:

Season the chicken breasts on both sides with salt, pepper, garlic powder, cayenne and paprika.

Cook the pasta according to the package directions.  When done, reserve ½ cup of the pasta water.

While the pasta is cooking,:

Spray a non-stick 10 – 12 inch pan with an oil spray, heat over medium low heat.

Place the chicken breasts in the pan and cover, cook for 6 minutes.

Turn the chicken over and cook for 6 more minutes, covered.

Set the chicken aside to rest for a couple of minutes, then slice into about ½” thick slices, cut those slices in half to make bite sized pieces.  Reserve the juices.

Heat the chicken broth to boiling

Into each of the three pasta bowls, add a couple of tablespoons of the goat cheese, and sprinkle with some Mrs. Dash.

Spoon about 2 oz. of hot broth and a couple of tablespoons of the reserved pasta cooking water into each of 3 pasta bowls over the goat cheese. 

Top the cheese broth with a third of the pasta, the a third of the chicken.

Sprinkle with a bit more of the goat cheese and serve.

Mix it all up in the bowl and dig in!

 (pictures soon)

Enjoy,

Lorence

Lorence's Goat Cheese Empanadas

A coworker recently made a "hummus" of sorts, an interesting concoction of chickpeas, oil-packed sun dried tomotoes, garlic and goat cheese. I was heating up my lunch in the work kitchen's microwave and flipping through a copy of "Real Simple" magazine when she offered me a taste. I really enjoyed the intense flavor and creamy texture and immediately flipped back a couple of pages inthe magazine to a recipe I had just seen, Goat Cheese Empanadas (can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/3snfv7w). I knew what I had to do...

So tonight I combined the two recipes and made a third to accompany my creation, a roasted corn salsa.

Here's what I did:

Ingredients:

2 cloves of garlic

4 oz oil packed sun dried tomatoes

1 can chickpeas (drained/rinsed)

4 oz goat cheese

olive oil

refrigerated pie crust, 2 crusts (make your own if you have the time)

Method:

In a food processor, process the garlic, tomatoes, chickpeas and goat cheese and add the olive oil until it reaches a smooth hummus like consistency.

Roll out the pie crusts.

Using a 3-inch round cookie cutter, cut circles from the 2 refrigerated crusts.

Put about a teaspoon of the hummus in the center of each round.

(I rolled out the scraps of dough and made more rounds to stuff!)

Lightly dot the edges of the dough with water, fold in half, and press with a fork to seal.

Bake on a foil or parchment lined baking sheet at 375ºF until golden, 20 to 25 minutes.

Serve with fresh made Roasted Corm Salsa, found on Taste of Home.

The roasted corn, fresh off of the grill:

Enjoy!

Lorence