Herb Chicken & Sausage with Basil Couscous

Tonight I was inspired by Chef Giada DeLaurentiis not because it's her recipe, but because she is so beautiful and  I love to watch her cook.  So tonight we took boneless, skinless chicken thighs that had been marinated all day with fresh herb sprigs, garlic from the garden and some dry white wine.  The herbs I used were fresh rosemary, thyme, basil, and oregano.  I crushed 3 garlic cloves too.  I added the chicken, herbs, wine and garlic to large zip lock and let them marinate for about 6 hours in the frig.   You could marinate overnite too if you have more time.  What  you will  need for the dish:  marinated chicken thighs, 3 italian sausages casing removed and broken into bite size pieces,  3/4 C dry white wine, 2 tbsp duck fat (you could use EVOO too, but I've had this duck fat in frig for awhile, so I wanted to try it),  4 cloves garlic minced, fresh asparagus ( I only had 5 left from a bunch, so I cut them into 1/2" pieces, 5 mushrooms sliced, 1/2 C heavy cream, 1 C fresh spinach chopped, 3 sprigs of fresh thyme, 2 sprigs of oregano.  For the couscous, just follow the directions on the box, I added 1 tbsp EVOO and 10 leaves of chopped basil to the finished product.  I also cooked my couscous in chicken stock and I used the butter which is optional.  Now that we have our mise en place together lets cook.  I took a large skillet and added the duck fat and heated over high heat for 5 minutes.  I added chicken thighs and seared both sides for 2 minutes (be careful, the duck fat really pops and splatters),  I then added the sausage and let that go for additional 2-3 minutes, stirring periodically to brown all sides of the sausage.   I added the wine and let the pan deglaze and reduced the heat to med.  I added the asparagus, mushrooms, garlic to the skillet and mixed everything in.  I cooked this for about 3-5 minutes and then added the heavy cream and the spinach and continued to cook for another 2-3 minutes.  I then added the herb sprigs (which you will remove from the dish before serving).  I reduced to heat to med low and let this simmer for an additional 2-3 minutes.  I removed from the heat, covered the dish and let it rest until I served it over my basil couscous.  Not sure if the duck fat added anything special, but this dish was really really yummy, so give it a try and let me know what you think. Bon Appetito!!

Healthy Herbed Meat Sauce and Farfalle

My favorite thing about summer is the garden.  I have a very, very small garden and I grow tomatoes, peppers, garlic and herbs.  One of these days I'll have a garden where I can grown corn, beans, cucumbers, squash, potatoes and more,  the sky is the limit, but right now I'm happy with my little garden.  Tonight I made a meat sauce and I used fresh herbs from the garden, basil, oregano, thyme, Italian parsley and rosemary.  This is a really simple dish; first thing, I got my pasta going.  Then I chopped 5 cloves garlic, 1/2 red pepper, 1/2 green pepper and 1/2 vidalia onion and sauteed them in 1 tbs of EVOO until they were softened.  I took 1lb of Laura's Lean ground beef w/ 4% fat and a and little fresh parmigiana reggiano.  I served it over farfalle, but you could use whatever pasta you like. One thing I would like to mention is that tonight while making the dish, I was conscience of not adding additional salt to anything.  Not the best idea, because pasta really needs salt and this pasta didn't have any flavor.  I recommend adding salt to the pasta water.  The sauce was fine with no added salt especially with the cheese.  If you want something healthy then I would give this dish a try.  Good Eats!