Pasta Roma Chicken & Mushrooms with a Basalmic Arugula Salad

This is one of my favorite recipes because it is so simple to make and has a richness to it that comes without the expense to your arteries.

What you need:
1 lb. thinly-sliced chicken breasts
6 oz. baby arugula
4 oz. whole white mushrooms
6 fresh basil leaves (chopped dried basil can be substituted)
2 garlic cloves
1 package of Knoll's Pasta Roma sauce mix
1 shallot
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp. grapeseed oil
1 tbsp. coarsely-ground black pepper
1 tsp. sea salt

Prep time: 3 minutes.
Cook time: 10 minutes.

What to do with them:
1. Chop the mushrooms, garlic, fresh basil and shallot on a cutting board. Leave aside.
2. Use half of the pepper and all of the salt to flavor both sides of the chicken.
3. Pour grapeseed oil into sautee pan and set heat to Med High.
4. Toss in garlic and cook for one minute. Reduce heat to Med and add shallot, mushrooms, basil. Cook for 3 minutes. Season to taste with dried basil, oregano.
5. Add chicken slices to pan, flipping every 3-5 minutes. Add more grapeseed oil if pan begins to smoke.
6. In separate pan, combine water, extra virgin olive oil and sauce mix in pan. Bring to boil, wisking constantly. Simmer after boil on Med Low heat, stirring for 5 minutes.
7. Once chicken has browned on each side and has cooked thoroughly (cut meat into pieces to view interior), transfer contents of chicken pan to sauce pan and bring down temperature to Med Low.
8. Mix everything together.
9. Add baby arugula to top of food mixture and add remaining salt, pepper and the balsamic vinegar. Heat for 1 minute.
10. Plate and serve.

Staples of the Homemade Gourmet

I try to target rich, dark green leafy greens for my meals. The richer the color, the more vitamins the plant possesses. Even when I go to a chain restaurant like Subway, I always order spinach instead of the iceberg lettuce. Arugula and spinach are my two staple greens - they provide different textures and tastes so even if you make two salads on back-to-back meals, it still feels like you're eating two distinct plates of food.

Arugula has a nice, bitter, almost peppery taste to it, and holds up well to heat, making it perfect for warm salads that contain heavy ingredients like mushrooms or onions. Spinach salads are better served at room temp since the leaf wilts almost instantly even on medium low heat.

Mushrooms are a hearty ingredient and I try to put at least 3 ounces in almost every dish. They hold up well in heat and absorb flavoring rather well, like little sponges. But sauteed in grapeseed oil (higher in good fat and lower in bad fat than in extra virgin olive oil. See Glossary.) and their true flavors come out, yet not in an overwhelming manner. For the men, they are a key source of selenium which helps to protect against prostate cancer, as they provide 15% of your Daily Value of Selenium in just 3 ounces.

Shallots and Garlic are great additions for warmer dishes as the hot oils extract a lot of flavor from these vegetables. An ounce of shallots provides 10% of your DV of Vitamin A and garlic has a slew of antioxidants contained within its cell walls. They can provide doses of extra nutrients to any meals with under one minute of extra prep time per meal, providing restaurant-quality meals at local market prices.

Some Basic Personal Living & Eating Guidelines

One of the things that I try to do with every meal is to have a lean protein (or a hearty vegetable, like white or portobello mushrooms) with an arugula salad, and then mix up the secondary ingredients. Sometimes I'll chop up half a white onion and throw that in the salad or in with the sauteed chicken, or maybe I'll finely dice a clove of shallots and cook them with the salad. The important thing to do is to maximize your vitamin and protein intake while limiting the saturated (bad) fats in your dishes. Plus, if something tastes really good, I'll want to savor it and make the meal last a long time, thereby allowing my body to adequately process the food so you actually feel yourself getting full. Also, the breaking down of protein in your body (called metabolysis) requires more energy than for metabolizing complex sugars, like carbohydrates. So the body is actually "working out" and burning calories just by digesting the delicious chicken pasta roma dish you had for dinner as you watch re-runs of Seinfeld. Pretty groovy if you ask me. The idea is to convert the body into a machine that is working out the other 23 hours of the day in which you are not in the gym or running in the park. A balanced diet containing lean proteins and a rich assortment of vitamins is the way in which I try to build that body.

The Homemade Gourmet

Welcome to The Homemade Gourmet! I'm Chris, a 28-year old Red Sox fan living in NYC having just graduated from grad school. An athlete all my life, I try to run 10-12 miles a week, lift weights 2-3x a week and play soccer once or twice on the weekends. It's a schedule that I feel is important to maintain due to my hereditary condition of having high cholesterol. If I did not take my medication, my levels would shoot up to over 200 (the borderline level between good and risky), and even skyrocket past 250 without adequate exercise and a nutritious diet. Therefore, I've always tried to incorporate fresh and lean foods into all of my meals.

I like to eat as healthy as possible but understand that on the both the tight budget and schedules with which many of us in NYC are faced, I understand how the luxury of being able to do so is sometimes not always available. So with that in mind, I have always tried to keep my recipes simple in design yet complex in flavor. Nothing on this blog takes more than 10 minutes to prep or 15 minutes to cook. I've recently started this blog as a way to keep track of all of my recipes and provide easy access to them for friends and followers alike.

I have always been a visual learner. I remember having to read long, drawn out explanations of chemical lab procedures when I was in high school and thinking, "how in the world am I going to do this reaction if I can't even set up the apparatus?" I was always the kid in lab who waited for everyone to begin hunting for the equipment so I could watch the smarter kids in class set up their device before I copied their moves. After that, the hard parts were over and I was always one of the first ones to finish the experiments and leave for the day. Therefore, I will include photos of the intermediary steps on the recipe as well as of the finished products. Also, I will list a glossary (with photos!) of all of the vegetables that I incorporate in my recipes. The first time I read a recipe that contained "anise" I had no idea what it was or what it looked like, much less how to even properly pronounce it to ask for it in the store! But we will learn to love our anise (or fennel).

Please let me know if you have any questions about what I post and please leave any feedback below! I love learning about new recipes and about different ingredients, and also what people think of my work!