Weekend!

What a week this has been… M has not keept well the entire week, I had a gazillion things to do at work and off work, a couple of drafts to work on, and in between all these, I had to fix up some time to complete my last couple of driving lessons. By Friday, I was ready for the weekend to come and rescue me.

And here it is, finally (and almost about to be over )! I was ready for some real good food. With M using the H(hungry)-word after an entire week, I wanted to make something really yummy as well as wholesome. Looking through madonnadelpiatto, I got inspired to try out something Italian-ish, with my own twist of course. If its Italian, it has to be spaghetti for us both (but, whole wheat ). Not meatballs though, its been done to death at my house. I decided on shredded chicken with olives. And what about some fries… ummm… home made sweet potato fingers, oven fried, crisp? Of course, with garlic!

K’s Spaghetti with Shredded Chicken & Olives, along with Oven Fried Sweet Potato Fingers:

Ingredients

For the Spaghetti:

• 1/4th a packet of Spaghetti, cooked and drained as per packet instructions. I used whole wheat spaghetti as that is all I had lying around, but of course you can use anything you want.
• 1 boneless chicken breast, boiled and shredded. The breast piece I used was about 300 grams in weight.
• 5 to 6 pimento-stuffed olives, drained. You can get this in any supermarket.
• 4-5 cloves of garlic, chopped finely.
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil. I used extra virgin olive oil coz I love the flavor.
• Crushed pepper and salt, to taste.
• Lots of Parmesan cheese, grated.
• 1 cup Chicken stock: I used the stock leftover after boiling the chicken breast.
• 1 teaspoon cornflour.
• 1 teaspoon wheat flour.

For the Sweet Potato Fingers:

• 1 medium sized sweet potato, peeled and cut into fingers, parboiled.
• 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil.
• 1 tablespoon of garlic paste.
• 1 teaspoon paprika or chilly powder, as per your preference. I used paprika, chilly powder is toooo strong for me.
• Salt to taste.

Procedure

For the Spaghetti:

• In a pan, pour the olive oil and add the chopped garlic to it. Stir for a minute.
• Then add the shredded boiled chicken and cook for till lightly browned.
• Now add the olives, salt and pepper. Let it all cook together for a little while like so:

• In the meantime, mix the chicken stock with the cornflour & wheat flour. Add salt and pepper to it. When the chicken looks nice and browned, pour this mixture over the chicken and let the stock thicken and cook. Let the gravy reduce to almost 1-2 tablespoons.
• Once the gravy reduces,  sprinkle Parmesan on it & mix it with the cooked spaghetti, and serve.
• Sprinkle more Parmesan over each serving.

Note: For all those of you who do not like bits of garlic in their food, just use garlic flavored oil instead. How to get garlic flavored oil? Simple! Heat the oil, add a couple of cloves of garlic to the it. When the aroma of garlic comes wafting through the kitchen, it is time to remove the garlic cloves from the oil. There you go: quick garlic flavored oil is ready.

For the Sweet Potato Fingers:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees centigrade.
2. In a baking dish, drizzle in the oil, add the garlic paste, paprika (or chilly powder) and salt, and finally, the sweet potato fingers. Mix well.
3. Arrange the potatoes in one single layer in the baking dish before going to the nest step.
4. Bake the parboiled and spiced sweet potatoes in the oven uncovered till crisp and golden. It took me about 25-30 minutes to get to the correct crisp and for the potatoes to cook completely. Make sure to turn the potato fingers once in between, for it to crisp out evenly on both sides.
5. Serve!

Note: Here too, instead of the garlic paste, you can use garlic flavored oil.

Check out the crispy bits:

The sweet potato fingers were amazing, especially with the gentle heat of paprika coming through the garlic-y yumminess. Don’t be afraid of garlic – it is not too strong if used in moderation & it is very good for you too. Sweet potatoes too are a healthier alternative to potatoes. When my husband suggested sweet potato instead of the usual, I was a bit apprehensive. But, try this one out, I promise that you will LOVE it, because I am hooked.

And yes, for dessert, I had my gooey jam hearted muffins.

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