cooking with summer vegatables to lighten my mood

Regarding my previous post, things have been a little bit glum here.
The girls and I had some fresh summer vegetables from our garden and some of the local fruit and vegetable stands. We decided to cook a meal together spend some time together and make the most of the evening.
I share with you our creation:

It doesn't have a name. We threw it together and it turned out great.


We started out by browning some onions in a tablespoon of olive oil.

We then added some cut up chicken breast.
Note: When breasts are on sale, I usually ask the butcher to cube it for me. They will do it free of charge if only you ask. (We asked our butcher to cut it into 1-in cubes which are actually a bit too big for bite sized.)

Cook the chicken only until the pink is gone no longer or it will dry out.


Add a tablespoon of chopped garlic. Add salt and pepper to your liking.



As you cook the chicken, slice (or slice and quarter for larger pieces) some zucchini, and yellow summer squash and some button mushrooms if desired.




Add to chicken, a bit of Italian seasoning, along with a can of chopped tomatoes
for variety:
Use the new favored tomatoes but I liked the tomato flavor
Or use fresh tomatoes chopped. (ours are not quite ripe yet)


We also threw in some olives for a Mediterranean taste. (Green olives would be good also but we didn't have any)

Just let the vegetables cook down slightly, the chicken finish cooking while you boil a little pasta. Larger pieces such as penne or corkscrew work best. Dont over cook the pasta. A little more firmness makes this dish delicious.

Drain pasta, stir the chicken vegetable mixture into the pasta and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese

It was marvelous! And made enough to enjoy for a lunch the next day also.
I would think a baked version would be tasty too. Try it and let me know what you think!




To top it all off it was nice quality mom and daughter time teaching life skills. I know this is true because while my daughter worked in Texas this summer she thanked me. It seems that the room mate she was paired with could not boil water for box mac and cheese... but found nothing wrong with my daughters cooking. I'm a proud mother.