Veggies, Chicken Pasta and Wine

Hello again!  Two blogs in one day...I'm on fire!  So this past Sunday I decided to make Angel Chicken Pasta (recipe to come later in this blog) and was looking in my fridge for ideas for a side.  I wanted something fairly healthy to pair with the pasta and what did I happen to have in my fridge?  A bunch of uncooked, diced up veggies I had leftover from making veggie kabobs at my BBQ!  Awesome.  Roasted vegetables it is: )  Even more awesome, the chicken pasta recipe included wine so guess what the Hubby and I did while fixing dinner?  Lets just say I love to cook with wine...sometimes I even put it in the food: )

The wine may or may not have made it to dinner...oops.  Also, the beautiful wine coasters and jeweled decorations are courtesy of my awesome sister Audra.  Great birthday present sis!


Veggie Kabobs 

Your favorite veggies, diced or cut large enough to skewer on a kabob stick
Olive oil (how much you need depends on how many kabobs you are making, I made 22 kabobs and used about a half cup of oil)
2-3 garlic cloves
Your favorite herbs and spices


Instructions
The day before you want to make the kabobs (or at least several hours before), mince the garlic and add to olive oil.  Then add any seasonings you want to the oil.  I used some thyme, oregano, crushed red pepper, salt and black pepper.  Let the oil sit with seasonings overnight to flavor the oil.  Assemble the kabobs.  I used butternut squash, zucchini, red, yellow and orange bell peppers, and pearl onions.  I put roughly equal proportions or each veggie on each kabob.  (Actually, the wonderful hubby assembled the kabobs for me, I just did one example and he did the rest)  Using a silicone basting brush, brush the flavored oil onto the assembled kabob.  Grill kabob until veggies begin to brown and are heated through.


Roasted Veggies


Your favorite veggies, large dice (I added turnips and shallots to the leftover butternut squash, bell peppers and zucchini)
Your favorite herbs and spices (I used thyme, garlic salt and ground cayenne pepper)
Olive oil (enough to lightly coat veggies)


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Toss cut up veggies in olive oil in a large bowl.  Sprinkle herbs and spices over veggies and toss again.  Arrange veggies on baking sheet in a single layer and bake for 45 min, or until veggies are cooked through and browned.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and enjoy!

Roasted veggies on the left and Angel Chicken Pasta on the right.  Sorry, the plate is a little messy.  I forgot to take a picture until I had already cut up the chicken and mixed up the pasta and sauce.



I also have an idea for the leftover cooked veggies.  Honestly, they don't reheat too well and I hate to waste food...what to do?  Well the reason they don't reheat too well is because they get mushy...mushy veggies?  Ugh!  Who wants those?  I thought about this for a while and finally had a sudden burst of inspiration.  Pureed veggies would make a great base for a spaghetti sauce!  So I pureed the veggies with some tomato sauce and later this week I will make a spaghetti sauce from that. I will let you all know how it turned out: )

Oh!  I almost forgot the recipe for the Angel Chicken Pasta.  It is actually a recipe from Allrecipes.com.  You can find it here.  It is a great recipe but I do make a few small changes.

1) Double the amount of sauce.  It is a great sauce and you will want a lot; )
2) I use 1 can condensed golden mushroom soup and 1 can condensed cream of chicken soup.  This is only because I am not a huge fan of mushrooms.
2) I use half the amount of wine and replace the other half with water.  You can also use all wine or all water depending on your personal tastes.  I feel using the full cup of wine gives the sauce too much wine flavor and it overpowers the other flavors of the dish.
3) I also flatten and tenderize the chicken before placing it in the baking dish.

I hope these recipes work as well for you as they have for me: )  Enjoy!