Adventure #6: Baked Penne with Chicken, Broccoli, and Mozzarella

            This past weekend Garrett and I went on our toughest adventure yet! Not only was it the hardest challenge that we’ve faced, it was also the most expensive and the most time consuming. However, above all that, adventure #6 was the most rewarding. This is what happened when we made baked penne with chicken, broccoli, and mozzarella.

            Garrett and I set off on this adventure in good spirits. We planned to purchase the ingredients and be home and cooking within an hour. However, that all fell apart with step one, shopping.

The list of ingredients was rather lengthy, which is why this adventure was so expensive. Although we had many of the items already, we still needed to purchase several more. The complete list of ingredients is as follows

 Topping:

¾ cup bread crumbs (store-bought or homemade)
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Filling:

1 bunch broccoli (about 1 ½ pounds), stalks cut off, florets trimmed into 1-inch pieces
12 ounces penne pasta
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, minced
6 medium garlic cloves, finely minced or pressed through a garlic press
1 teaspoon dried thyme
¼ cup all-purpose flour
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
1 ½ pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts, trimmed and cut into bite-size pieces
3 ounces smoked mozzarella, shredded
8 ounce jar oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained and chopped into pieces
 

            Step one posed several problems, but I’ll just mention a few. First of all, we could not find smoked mozzarella, so we had to go back and forth between the cheese section and the deli. This alone caused a slight delay in our one hour timeframe. Next, neither one of us had any idea what a garlic clove was or where to find it. I’ll admit that we had to call my mother on this one, causing yet another delay. Finally, we had the challenge of finding the sun-dried tomatoes. We scanned the aisle containing every other type of tomato for several minutes before giving up and deciding that we would have to ask someone for assistance. It was by luck alone that Garrett spotted the jar of tomatoes on our way up to the deli, saving a little time but not enough for us to make our deadline.

            By the time we checked out and drove home, we had been gone for an hour and a half. Nevertheless, we were still in good spirits. We laid the groceries out on the counter and gathered the rest of the ingredients in order to begin step two, cooking.

            Garrett and I split the work, so I began by cooking the broccoli and spaghetti while Garrett cut up the chicken and chopped the onion. Once completed, we set those ingredients aside so that we could tackle the garlic cloves. We were both pretty surprised to find that there were numerous cloves in one piece of garlic. Naturally, my dainty hands were better suited for peeling the cloves, so I did that while Garrett minced them.

            The next step was to basically combine all of the ingredients except for the topping into a large pot. We did this together, waited for the chicken to cook, poured the combination into a greased pan, topped it with the breadcrumbs, and placed it in the oven to bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

 

 

 

 

            By this point, the house already smelled heavenly, but when the golden brown dish came out of the oven, the smell was even stronger. To top it all off, the dish tasted wonderful! In fact, Garrett thought it tasted like a gourmet meal. Needless to say, we were beyond proud of ourselves. Adventure #6 was a huge success and boosted our confidence for the next challenge.

 

What should we make next?

 

Find the complete recipe for baked penne with chicken, broccoli, and mozzarella here http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2011/01/baked-penne-with-chicken-broccoli-and-smoked-mozzarella.html.