Best Thing I’ve Eaten This Week

Yum, Yum, Yum!

This episode of “Best Thing I’ve Eaten This Week,” features a pretty tasty lineup, starring chicken Marsala.  We both really enjoy chicken Marsala, but it’s not something that we’ve actually made for ourselves until this week.  But we went for it, and we loved it!  Before going any further, I need to come clean and confess that it was not actually Marsala wine that we used in the sauce; instead we opted to go with a white Pinot Grigio.  So maybe we should call it “chicken Pinot.”

To make the Marsala Pinot sauce, I simmered some mushrooms (about 6) and onion (maybe 1/2) in butter.  I added in about a teaspoon of minced garlic, some salt and pepper, and just a couple of chopped fresh basil leaves.  When they had softened a bit, I added in the Pinot (1/2 – 1 cup), turned up the heat briefly, and then turned it down to reduce it.  I added about a 1/2 teaspoon of flour to stir in and help it thicken up to the correct consistency (you may need more or less depending on how you far you reduce it on its own).

starting to saute

 

Meanwhile, I obviously had to cook the chicken as well.  Since I knew the sauce would be pretty rich, I just used a pretty basic bit of salt and pepper and then a little garlic salt to cook the chicken.  In addition to the chicken Marsala Pinot, I decided to throw together a little cucumber, tomato, and onion salad.  Those ingredients were the salad, which was perfect because we had about half of a cucumber that we had and the last nub of a tomato along with a few stray grape tomatoes.  Such a great little salad to use up some veggies that we had sitting in the fridge.  I added some fresh basil, some salt and pepper, a drizzle of olive oil, and balsamic vinegar to dress the salad. Fresh. Delicious.

the veggie salad, pre-dressed

So with the chicken Pinot and the salad, we were pretty well set.  We added a piece of toasted, everything bread so that we could sop up some of the extra sauce.  It was on point.  The complete meal:

clean plate club!

 

But wait, there’s more!!  We normally don’t do a lot of desserts, but Em decided to use some pears that we had to make a pear tart for dessert and it was delicious and a perfect end to the meal.  It was based on this recipe and didn’t require a whole bunch of ingredients.  According to Em it was pretty easy to put together (of course, I’m no baker like she is, so it probably would not have been so easy for me!).  It was really just a few pears, some flour, butter, milk, water, sugar, salt, and a honey glaze.  But my, how delicious!

yummy

 

I always try to do price out our meals when doing “The Best Thing I’ve Eaten This Week” posts. So here we go:

~ $1.50 – 4 small chicken tenderloins

~ $0.25 – 6 mushrooms (I got them on sale!)

~ $0.25 – 1/2 onion

~ FREE – fresh basil (we grow our own and it is so worth it!)

~ $0.75 – 1/2 – 1 cup of (cheap) Pinot Grigio

~ $0.10 – 2 slices of everything bread

~ $0.50 – entire salad (half of a leftover cucumber, tomato nub, a couple of slices of onion)

~ $0.50 – 1 cup of flour, pinch of salt, bit of sugar for dessert

~ $0.15 – 2 tablespoons of milk

~ $0.25 – butter

~ $1.00 – 3 pears for the dessert

~ $5.25 Total for a great dinner AND dessert for two (with leftovers)

 

Proving once again that you can eat great (semi-fancy) food and still stay on a very reasonable budget!

As always: Eat. Be Happy.