Hello, good evening, goodbye, and hello again! My name is Patrick Hallihan, and I like to eat, a lot. And I don’t just mean in terms of how much I like eating, but the quantities I eat, as well. And I think many of my fellow students would share my joy of food, even if only to varying extents. But being a college student is tough enough on the wallet without an egregious food budget to deal with, so it’s important to spend your edible cash wisely. But how does one do this? By reading food reviews!
I’ll be doing a mixture of reviews of places in the Greater Victoria area I like to eat at (for anything from a quick lunch to a dinner date), as well as some recipes I enjoy making/eating. I’ll keep three things in mind when writing reviews and recipes: quality, price, and ease. So, let’s get some noms! (And, yes, I totally say that to people when I want to get food.)
This is one of my favourite dinners to cook on a budget: chicken pasta. It’s fairly cheap, and if you bulk it out with some extra noodles, you can feed half-a-dozen people (or, if you’re like me, yourself, half-a-dozen times). I’ll also be including a recipe for a simple white sauce to go with the pasta. Prep time is about one hour, and feeds four, so bring your textbook to study between chopping and stirring! Here’s what you’ll need:
Two boneless chicken breasts
400g of noodles (more or less, if you desire. I prefer penne, but in this iteration I’ll be using rotini.)
Vegetables (I used red and green peppers, a tomato, a stick of celery, and a portion of a yellow onion.)
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup milk
spices (to taste)
First, preheat your oven to 325F, and line an oven-friendly pan with tinfoil. Now we need to coat the chicken in something. Today, I’m just using a dry rub of chili powder and coating the chicken in it. Once done, place the chicken breasts on the pan, and place in the preheated oven. Cook for about 40Đ45 minutes, ensuring the chicken is cooked all the way through because no one wants food poisoning during school, as it will happen anyway during your midterms.
Next, get your vegetables ready. Rinse them off, chop finely (carefully avoiding your fingers), and place in a bowl for later. Maybe chop some extra so you can eat some as you go. When choosing vegetables, grab what you enjoy, or whatever is handy from the fridge and seems vegetable-like. In this case, I used half a green and red pepper, a stick of celery, a tomato, and about 1/6 a yellow onion. Normally, I would prefer a Spanish onion, but this recipe is aimed at using what’s handy. Place these to the side, we’ll be keeping them raw, to give a nice crunch in the final product.
Grab a big metal pot and fill it with water (about four litres for 400g of pasta, or as the pasta package directs), and add about half a tablespoon of oil and some salt. Crank the burner to high and let the water come to a boil. At this point, you should be starting the sauce (see next paragraph). Once the water comes to a boil, add the noodles and cook until al dente, Italian for “to the tooth.” Noodles should reach al dente around nine minutes, or as the package directs.
While the water is coming to a boil, start on the sauce. In a small saucepan, melt the butter, then add the flour and salt, mix, and then add the milk. Bring the sauce to a bubble on medium heat (about two minutes) and then reduce to low. Now add spices to taste. I put in a small amount of oregano, thyme, pepper, garlic, and some parmesan cheese, but experiment and find what you like. Allow the sauce to simmer and thicken for about six minutes. Make sure to stir occasionally, or you’ll end up with a chunky mess burnt to the bottom of the pot.
At this point, everything should be finished. Drain the water from the noodles and add the vegetables to them. Ensure the chicken is cooked all the way through, and slice them up and add to the noodles and vegetables.
If any “chicken juice” is in the tinfoil, pour it in to the sauce: it adds a good flavour and the important fat content required for deliciousness. Lastly, pour in the sauce, and stir it all around until everything is a steamy, sauce-coated, delicious mess.