Farfalle Pasta in sauteed peppers, onions,eggplant and mushrooms with rosemary chicken

Overview:

The Farfalle pasta is yet another ingredient that will add an aesthetic look to your food. Pasta is not a very healthy meal altogether, but when blended with vegetables or your choice of meat, it can be a delight for eyes and taste buds and will keep a good score on health factor as well. So, this mix and match came up in my mind just a couple of days back and I started cooking it in my head even before actually trying it for real.. !

Italian food mostly makes use of vegetables like onion, garlic,peppers,eggplant,tomatoes and mushrooms. Sometimes greener ones like romaine lettuce etc. but for this recipe I have used the ones I mentioned first.

Cooking time : 50-60 mins , serves 3-4

I really hope someone would try this recipe someday and let me know if they liked it :). It feels like "Julie and Julia" playing around. But thankfully, I am not obsessed with the cooking :)

Ingredients:

You will need :

• Farfalle pasta (one cup)
• Diced mushrooms(around 5-6) and 1 small diced eggplant(around half a cup)
• 1 Diced pepper each of your choice : Red, green, yellow
• 2 Diced onions
• Tomato puree
• Parmesan-romano pasta sauce(available at stores)
• grated Parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese, ricotta cheese
• Italian Bruschetta dressing
• 2 tbsp Olive oil
• Salt as per taste
• 1 tsp Margarine/butter
• 7 garlic cloves (grated)
• boneless chicken thighs (2)
• Italian seasoning with dried Thyme, rosemary, oregano and basil.
• crushed black pepper
• lemon juice
• some red wine

Recipe:

1. In a pan, boil pasta along with some salt, drain it and set aside.
2. Wash chicken and cut in small pieces(1 x 1 inch). Sprinkle some salt, crushed black pepper and Italian seasoning over the chicken and set aside for 15 mins. Preheat the oven at 420 degree F or 215 degree Celsius.
3. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil and add a tsp of grated garlic. Saute for a few seconds and add all the chopped vegetables like onions, mushrooms, peppers and eggplant. Saute or stir fry for a few minutes until the vegetables start loosing water. Add salt as per taste and cook covered for a minute.
4. Now add 2 tbsp of Italian Bruschetta dressing and saute well.
5. Cook open until the water starts drying up. Pour some red wine over the vegetables(around 2 tbsp) and then sprinkle Italian seasoning all over the mixture and set aside covered so that it doesn't loose heat and gravy.
6. Now in the preheated oven, bake the chicken for around 6-7 minutes. After that take out the chicken, drain the fat lost by it and pour some lemon juice over it. Set it aside.
7. Now add together the pasta and vegetable mixture and mix well without disrupting the shapes of individual ingredients.
8. In a separate skillet, heat some margarine/butter and add the rest of grated garlic. Saute until light brown and then add tomato puree. Heat for a minute and then add the Parmesan-Romano pasta sauce. Heat this mixture well. This will be the sauce for our pasta salad made in step 7.

Serving/Presentation :

In a platter, serve the pasta salad of "step 7" and top up with the baked rosemary chicken. Now pour some pasta sauce over it centrally and sprinkle the grated Parmesan,Mozzarella and Ricotta cheese. Sprinkle some Italian seasoning at the end to increase the rosemary aroma. Serve hot.

** For Vegetarians :Just Don't add chicken !!! ;)