Monday, December 19, 2011

Make A Meal At Home

Baked Rigatoni with Spinach, Ricotta, and Fontina with Parsley Chicken

Groceries - The only groceries I had to buy were the ricotta and fontina cheese, rigatoni noodles, a red chile, and spinach. I bought these at Safeway and Extra Foods.

Preparation - To prepare the food, I had to grate the parmesan and fontina cheese, cut the chicken, chile and garlic, and rinse/drain the spinach, and of course get all the ingredients out and ready, as well as the equipment/tools.

Time Needed to Prepare Meal - about 45 min.
Time Needed to Serve Meal - 10 min.
Time Needed to Clean Up after Meal - 30 min.
Total Amount of Time: at least 1 hr. 25 min.

Servings from the Meal - Grains: 10 (Pasta)
                                           Fruits/Vegetables: 4 (Spinach)
                                           Dairy: 6 (Ricotta, Parmesan, Fontina)
                                           Meats/Alternatives: 6 (Chicken)
                                           Fats/Other: Olive Oil

Preparation/Process/Serving -

Ingredients for the pasta

Equipment/Tools

Grated cheeses

Mixture of ricotta, spinach, fontina, parmesan, and spices for the noodles.


The noodles cooking

Finished noodles

Ready and going into the oven



Finished product

Ingredients for the chicken

Cutting up the chicken


The chicken cooking

The finished chicken, with the wine and spices

Table setting

Family Comments - Mom: The rigatoni casserole had lots of nice colour and taste. The chicken was a bit
                                 spicy but was cooked well and was really juicy. Very tasty!
                                 Brother: The pasta was creative with colour, but was a bit overcooked on the top and
                                 lacked a bit of flavour. The chicken was really good and had lots of flavour.
                                 Sister: The pasta was pretty good but I didn't really like all the spinach, and the
                                 chicken was phenominal with a little less spice.

The whole process of preparing and serving the meal went pretty well overall. The recipes were actually really easy, especially the rigatoni. I had everything ready to go so it was easy to finish everything quickly. The pasta seemed a bit hard to make but once I got started it was really easy to follow. Although, I didn't completely mix the spinach mixture with the noodles so some of the noodles were a bit dry and didn't have the mixture on it, but it still turned out.

The chicken was also really easy to make, but I think I cut the chicken too small, but they still worked. One thing I did wrong was add too much red chile, it made the chicken way too spicy. Also, I think I added just a little bit too much white wine, but the chicken was really well cooked and juicy, and had lots of flavour. I could have also let the chicken simmer with the wine and spices for a little longer.

If I were to do anything different with the recipes, I would cut down the ammount of red chile and white wine in the chicken. I would also add something (like olive oil) to the pasta mixture so it wouldn't be so dry. Also, I would have given myself more time to make the meal, I was kind of rushing. My favourite part of making the meal would be making the chicken, I really like making chicken and adding different things to it.

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