Chicken Alfredo...And All the Latest News

Edie, eyeing my breasts.

Some noteworthy things a-happening at Casa Yummy Mummy:

• I pulled a Jessica Seinfeld yesterday (even after I said horrible things about her book here) and got my kids to eat broccoli by telling them it was “just parsley”. I feel unclean and need to shower.
  

• But I posted my Chicken Alfredo recipe below, which contains broccoli….oh, I mean parsley, and it’s scrumptious (I’m eating a bowl of leftovers right now).
  

• A lovely surprise – a reader in San Francisco made my roast chicken, which I stole from Thomas Keller and she said it’s even better than the Amateur Gourmet’s roast chicken, which he stole from Alice Waters and this post made me so happy I had to read it to my husband, who gave me the same look he gives Lucy when she does something completely normal but expects heaps of praise for it and then said, “Well, of course, baby. Your chicken is amazing.” And then he went back to clipping his toe nails. Anyway, thank you San Francisco Mama for totally making my night last night.
  

• This morning, Edie and I had a serious nursing argument/meltdown/cage match of death. It went something like this: Edie is trying to nurse every 5 minutes and spent a good portion of last night with my nipple in her mouth, now it is all wet and raw and chapped and it hurts to nurse and so the more I want to not nurse, the more she wants to nurse until she is so obsessed and riled up she can think of nothing but nursing and many tears were shed and lots of screaming and an all out seizure on the floor…but then, David told me to get up. And I finally did and now I'm fine. And now, Edie is out at the playground with Lucy and the CSFB (the Competent but Sexy Finnish Babysitter) and hopefully she is running around in this warm spring weather and not even thinking about my big honking nipples…but you know she is, right?
  

• Evil Chef Mom had a birthday yesterday and you should go over and visit her because she just turned 43…ooops! I mean 34…and she is clearly over-using the privilege of Google in her birthday post, but you will learn many useful things about about John Madden, Arbor Day and the Titanic, and this will make you more fun at cocktail parties. Plus, she’s the kind of girl I’d call for help if I found a dead hooker in my hotel room, so you know, she's cool.
  

• I went out to lunch with one of my book clients yesterday, the one who's book just came out but I can't talk about it (and we discussed my not talking about it and he's thinking about whether I can talk about it in the future) and we had lunch at MR. K's in mid-town and I ate lobster and drank 2 glasses of wine and not one person for the 3 whole hours (including a walk through the park), pulled up my shirt and demanded "Boob!", which is like a miracle or tried to climb on my back and ride me through the room like Thunder the Put-Upon Horse. And it was great until I started missing the kids (What am I? Insane?) and wanting to see them, but still it was fun until my head exploded and then, we played at playgrounds all afternoon and shook off the winter.

That's what I got for now. I'm sure there will be more later. Oh! This weekend I'm making hot dogs...FROM SCRATCH. Stay tuned for that insanity.

xxxooo YM

Chicken Alfredo

Serves 6

I’m spitballin’ this recipe folks, but it’s so easy you can make it as a quick, filling lunch for the kids in the same time it would take you to make a box of Annie’s Mac and Cheese (food of death from a box not allowed in my house. Princess movies, yes. Box, no.) and this is soooo much more satisfying.

I set up a pot of water to boil and salted it. While the water is heating, I put a touch of olive oil in a cast iron skillet and browned 3 plump chicken breasts, lightly salted, on each side, so they have a nice sear, but still a little pink on the inside. Then, I put them aside.

In the cast iron pan, I added a healthy knob of butter, some thinly sliced garlic and sauteed two leeks sliced into strings and added some chopped broccoli and a little salt. While they were going, I added a box of gemelli pasta (you can use any substantial pasta, but the kids love gemelli so I go with that) to the boiling water and cut the chicken breasts into strips.

If you have room in your skillet fine, but I didn’t so I reserved some of the pasta water and set it aside and then, drained the pasta and returned it to the pan. I added the leeks and broccoli mixture, the chicken pieces, a little of the pasta water, another knob of butter and let it warm up on a low flame.

Then, I added heavy cream until I found the right consistency and added handfuls of shredded Parmesan cheese. I was quite generous with the Parm. Then, I added a handful of parsley (chiffonade) and a bunch of basil (which should have been finely chopped but the kids wanted to do it and so it was in large torn swaths, which still worked just fine), added salt and pepper to taste and served it in warm bowls, where small children filled their stomachs greedily and made me a happy cook.