love is blonde

When I left my job, they threw me a big party and gave me a custom cookbook full of everyone’s favorite recipes. It’s my favorite kind of gift: thoughtful and useful! I made my first recipe from it last week:

Roasted Poblano and Chicken Penne (recipe from Cooking for Love blog)

This recipe is great if you like cheese, peppers, and pasta. And who doesn’t like those things? If the spice thing scares you, just use fewer or milder peppers.

The basics of the recipe are this:

• Broil the peppers until they get black and charred. Let them cool and peel the really black stuff off.
• Sauté mushrooms, garlic, and onions. Add one or a portion of a chipotle pepper in adobo sauce.
• Add flour and spices and cook for a few more minutes. Whisk in broth and water and thicken.
• Add chopped peppers and rotisserie chicken chunks.
• Add cream cheese (we used FF) and Mexican cheese to make it all creamy and cheesy.
• Gently fold in cooked penne pasta, add salt and pepper and eat up!

Was the recipe easy to follow? As long as you don’t get too hung up on the pepper-roasting step (and you really shouldn’t; no need for perfection here), the rest is easy. You just saute up a bunch of yummy things in a big pot in successive order. The use of rotisserie chicken is the key here: no raw meat in the kitchen to clean up – blech!

Did the dish taste good? Yes, but it was spicy! If you don’t like spicy, just use a wee bit of chipotle/adobo sauce and cayenne. Husband gave it his approval. Also, we used FF cream cheese even though I am morally against FF cheese (another rant for another time) and I couldn’t even tell. The dish is deceptively healthy for how rich and flavorful it is!

Would you make it again? Yes, I think so. I might even add in different veggies (corn, zucchini).

Ingredients below the jump…Happy Weekend to All!

3 handfuls Dry Penne Pasta (okay, we used a whole box. We wanted leftovers)
1 cup chopped rotisserie chicken
1 roasted poblano peppers
1/2 roasted red pepper
1/4 of a yellow onion sliced
1 cup sliced baby bella mushrooms (I used cheapy ‘shrooms)
1 large garlic clove
1t oil
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce
1T flour
1t cayenne
1/4 t cumin
2 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup broth
1/2 cup water
shredded Mexican cheese