Erica's Italian "Slop" aka Pasta-less Italian

I walked into the break room on Monday to the scent of fragrant Italian food. Lasagne? I wondered. The only person in the room was Erica, a nurse I work with who has been on the Atkins diet for months.

"What is that intoxicating smell?" I asked.
"Slop," responds Erica.
I give her a quizzical look. "Slop? What do you mean?"
"Slop," Erica begins in her Rhode Island accent, "is pasta, without the pasta."

I took a few notes and then made it the following night. The extra prepared chicken I threw in the freezer for the next time I need something easy and low-cal Italian.

Erica's Pastaless Italian Slop
about 1 lb of chicken, cut into bite-sized morsels, seasoned with salt and pepper
*1 jar of pasta sauce
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 small pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)
1 large crown of broccoli, cut into small bite-sized morsels
1 can of olives (with a few reserved for eating while cooking), cut in halves (optional)
Ricotta cheese
salt & pepper to taste
EVOO

*If you don't have pasta sauce handy, take a can of crushed tomatoes, add 1 big pinch basil, 1 pinch oregano, salt, pepper, and a dash of thyme.

1. Drizzle about 1 tablespoon of EVOO in a frying pan for the chicken.

2. While the pan is warming, dumb sauce, garlic cloves, broccoli, olives, and red pepper flakes into a sauce pot. Turn on medium and cover. Be sure to stir occasionally while cooking the chicken.

3. Cook the chicken stir-fry style. When it's finished, the sauce should also be finished. The broccoli in the sauce is the litmus for "done."

4. Serve the chicken smothered in sauce, and add a dollop of ricotta cheese. Enjoy!

Pesto Chicken

I love the restaurant The Real Chow Baby, and their G-F pesto-peanut sauce. I haven't been to Chow Baby in *confession* almost a year. There is a strange curse with whoever I go with- I don't see the people I eat with (except for Melissa and Jamie, two of my best friends) afterward, as evidenced by:

1. Post my car accident, in May 2007, I went with Melissa and Crystal. Crystal and I didn't hang
out until the end of August, 2008.
2. Melissa, Derek, Lawyer Boy, and I went on a double date. Lawyer Boy and I stopped seeing
each other soon after (after just a few weeks), and Melissa just broke up with Derek a few
months ago.
3. Jamie, The Professor, Climber Man, and I went on a double date. A few weeks later, Jamie
dumped The Professor, and Climber Man and I split up. (Both were short-lived relationships.)

Naturally, I can't take Nick there. Well, maybe I will at some point, since I think we could break the curse. My pesto cravings would not subside last week, so I took to desperate measures and visited the Farmer's Market. Here is my pesto, minus the Chow Baby's peanut. I put it over chicken, mixed it with tomato sauce over pasta, ate it out of the container, and thought about dipping bread into it. Tell me what you do with yours.

Liv's Emergency Pesto
2 cups fresh basil leaves
3 cloves garlic
1 cup parsley
2/3 cup pine nuts
Extra Virgin olive oil, +/- 1 cup

Separate your ingredients into two batches. Put one half in the blender at a time until a paste-like substance is created. I used enough olive oil to barely cover the blades of the blender. If you like your pesto thick, I highly recommend titrating your oil.

Store it in an easily accessible container- this pesto is so good, you'll think about eating it as a midnight snack. You can also freeze it for future emergencies!