GF Pasta with a Spicy Twist!

OK guys, I'm going to be honest with this one.  I made this for dinner a few weeks ago on a Sunday and it was fantastical... we both really loved it.  I took pictures.  I had leftovers.  I even battled with some indigestion from eating too much.  But it's all too common that when I make a great dish like this, it comes together in pieces in my little pea brain, and then we gobble it all up and I never write the recipe down.  So here's the long and short of it.  I was craving pasta and I had a box of Schar Multigrain Penne Rigate in the pantry.  This is one of the best GF pastas out there and really holds up well when tossing it with a thick and chunky kind of pasta sauce.

So that's the pasta part of it.... here's the rest of my inspiration - (1) a whole stick of chorizo that was in the fridge and (2) indian spices, from watching too much of The Next Food Network Star and wanting to create my own Aarti Party in my kitchen.  So the end result was a thick tomato sauce with chunks of chicken, crispy chorizo pieces, chopped olives, and lots of spices (like cumin, chili powder, coriander and even a pinch of cinnamon).... then I stirred in greek yogurt at the end to give it a creamy and tangy finish.  It was awesome.  Sorry I can't be more exact, but I guess it will be my secret and maybe subconsciously I didn't want to share it with any of you.  Oh, and I'm looking at the picture and I see chopped green stuff.  Fresh herbs - probably marjoram and oregano from the planters out back.  Instead of telling you to enjoy this one, I'll just give you one of these :P

Weeknight Chicken Dinner... Hmmmmm?

Almost every night of the week we are faced with the same question:  What's for dinner?  It doesn't matter who you are, what you like, what special diet you adhere to - after spending a full day at work, nobody wants to spend a long time in the kitchen preparing dinner.  When I lived alone, it was easy to cook one night and have leftovers for a few nights.  Now that there are two of us, it's a little tougher to make a meal for two that includes enough leftovers for at least one other night for both of us.  And that is a requirement - we try to cook on our off-gym nights so that we have leftovers for the nights that we workout and eat at 8:30 or 9.

Lately one of my favorite weeknight dinners revolves around roasted boneless chicken breasts that are smothered in some kind of spice mixture.  We get the large family packs of chicken breasts when they are on sale and then trim, clean and cut them into large chunks - and we're good to go.  This time around, I went with the following theme for my spice mixture:

Smoky Chili Lime Chicken

1/2 T smoked paprika
1/2 T ground cumin
1/2 T ground coriander
1/2 T chili powder
1 tsp chipotle chili powder (more or less to taste - it's pretty spicy)
1 tsp garlic salt (or alternately, grate up 1 clove of garlic and add some kosher salt)
2 T extra virgin olive oil
1 lime, zested and juiced
kosher salt and black pepper to taste

approximately 3 lbs of boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Preheat the oven to 400°.  As mentioned, prep the chicken breasts by cleaning, trimming and cutting the breasts into large chunks (about 3 pieces per breast, equal sizes).  In a small bowl add all of the dry spices and stir together, then add the lime zest & juice and olive oil.  Whisk together until well blended.  Place the chicken in a large bowl and pour the spice mixture over the chicken.  Stir together with a large spoon until all of the pieces of chicken are evenly coated with the spice mixture.  Drop the chicken into a greased pyrex baking dish and spread the pieces out evenly to ensure even cooking.  Season the chicken with kosher salt and fresh black pepper to your personal taste.  Then bake the chicken for about 35 minutes, or until the chicken starts to brown slightly at the thinner edges and the juices run clear.

Now what can you do to make this a complete meal?  Add veggies and some kind of carb/grain, right?  We had some great fresh asparagus, so we seasoned it with salt, pepper and olive oil and roasted it for about 10 minutes on a baking sheet in the same oven that the chicken was cooking in.

And finally the carb this time around was quinoa.  Anyone who has had quinoa will quickly realize that it's a very plain grain, and your really need to jazz it up a bit.  So I diced up 1/2 of a small white onion and sauteed it in a small sauce pan with some olive oil.  I seasoned with salt and pepper and also threw in about 2 tsp of whole cumin seeds over the onions.  When the onions softened, I added 1 cup of quinoa and stirred it until the grains were coated in olive oil.  Then I added 2 cups of GF chicken stock and threw in a fresh bay leaf and a sprig of fresh thyme.  Once it comes to a boil, cover it and lower the heat - simmer for about 15 minutes or until the grains absorb all of the liquid and become light and fluffy.  Stir it up, remove the bay leaf and thyme sprig and then serve up the whole meal like this!  I hope you enjoy this quick, easy, gluten free meal :)