Thursday July 28

Tonight's dinner: grilled chicken on pasta with tomatoes and basil.

Apologies, but the picture I took of the finished dish didn't turn out. I'm going today to get a camera that will take close-up pictures.

I marinated the boneless skinless chicken breasts in a mixture of finely minced garlic, Montreal chicken seasoning, ground coriander, ground cumin, green Tabasco sauce (it's milder than the red), white balsamic vinegar, and extra virgin olive oil. Tony cut the whole breasts into thick strips for grilling.


The pasta was spaghetti rigati. I always prefer the rigati version of long pastas like spaghetti, fettucini, and linguini. Rigati means there are ridges down the length of the pasta instead of a smooth surface. The ridges help the pasta hold onto sauce, and give it a chewier mouth-feel.


Tony made the pan sauce. You can say whatever you want about Rachael Ray, but she taught me a lesson which has served me well: learn a method, not a recipe, and you can adapt it to whatever ingredients you have for an endless variety of dishes limited only by your imagination and your pantry. For this sauce, Tony started with a fat (any kind of oil), in this case he chopped several strips of bacon and browned them in the skillet, then set the cooked bacon aside and used the fat to sweat the aromatics, for this sauce he used chopped shallots, then added the flavorings, tomato paste, chopped fresh tomatoes from our garden, and minced garlic. He browned all that thoroughly until it started to stick to the pan, then added the liquid. I went to get the white wine, but he said no, get the vodka. I've made vodka tomato sauce before, but I've never used vodka in a pan sauce like this, so I said are you sure? He gave me his 'oh, please' look, which I deserve whenever I question his culinary inventiveness, and so the Ketel One went into the pan to deglaze and reduce. Once that was as thick as he wanted it he added a pat or two of butter, a splash of half 'n half, a bit of salt and pepper, and the cooked bacon and heated it through.


Meanwhile the grilled chicken was resting under a foil tent and I boiled the pasta. When the sauce was ready, we spooned up the pasta onto the plate, added some chicken, drizzled the sauce over, and garnished with fresh chopped tomatoes and shredded fresh basil from the herb garden. A side dish of salad from a bag enhanced with some sliced garden cucumbers accompanied, and I truly wish the picture had come out because it was beautiful as well as delicious.

My first post!

Okay, here we go. This blog will be about the culinary adventures in the Ellis household. That's me, Leslie, and my husband Tony. We both love to cook and we both love to eat and drink. I envision this blog to be a record of what we're cooking, how we cook it and what it ultimately tastes like. I also plan to add pictures and videos so there will be something interesting to look at. I hope my friends and family will find it interesting!