Pasta Salad With Grilled Lemon Chicken Roasted Peppers And Goat Cheese Food

ROASTED-PEPPER PASTA SALAD

Steps:

• Preheat the broiler. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook as the label directs. Drain and rinse under cold water to stop the cooking. Shake off the excess water. Meanwhile, place the bell peppers cut-side down on a foil-lined broiler pan, add the garlic and broil until charred, 7 to 8 minutes. Transfer the peppers to a bowl, cover and set aside about 5 minutes. Heat a dry skillet over medium-high heat. Add the almonds and toast, shaking the pan, 4 to 5 minutes. Let cool, then coarsely chop. Squeeze the garlic from its skin onto a cutting board. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt; mince and mash the garlic into a paste with a large knife. Peel the roasted peppers and slice into strips; transfer to a large bowl. Add the garlic paste and drizzle with the olive oil. Finely grate about 1 teaspoon lemon zest into the bowl and squeeze in all of the lemon juice. Add the bocconcini, basil, almonds, pasta, 1 teaspoon salt, and pepper to taste; toss.
• Photographs by Antonis Achilleos

GRILLED LEMON PEPPER CHICKEN PASTA SALAD

Steps:

• Place the chicken on a plate and rub both sides of the chicken fillets with 1-2 Tablespoons lemon pepper. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 1 hour to let the flavors develop.
• While the chicken is in the fridge, get the grill ready. When the coals are ready, spray the grill with a nonstick spray and place the chicken on the grill.
• Cook for about 6 minutes and turn over. Cook for another six minutes. Put the chicken on a plate to rest and to collect the juices.
• While the chicken is marinading, get a large pot of water boiling and put in the pasta noodles. Bring back to a boil, stirring the noodles so they don't stick to the bottom. Reduce the heat to a simmer and continue to cook for about 7-11 minutes (or until the noodles are tender).
• Drain off the hot water and run a stream of cool water over the noodles until they are cold. Drain off most of the water, add 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil to prevent the noodles from sticking, and drain into a colander.
• To cook the broccoli florets, get a large saucepan with about 3 inches of water in it on the stove. Bring the water to a boil and put the broccoli in and toss to cook evenly. It only needs to cook for about 2-3 minutes, drain off all the water and run cold water on the florets to cool them off and stop the cooking process so they won't be mushy.
• All of these steps can be done ahead of time to make the salad easy to assemble. To make the dressing right in the bowl for the salad, place 1 Tablespoon lemon pepper with 1 Tablespoon water in a large serving bowl and let stand for 5 minutes. With a whisk, blend in the vinegar, oil, mustard, and honey.
• Slice the chicken into 1 inch cubes and put in the bowl with the dressing, adding the cooked pasta, broccoli, celery, oranges, and onion. Toss to coat.
• TIP: To get the segments from the orange, with a sharp paring knife, cut off the top and bottom of the orange so it will sit evenly on the cutting surface. Using the paring knife, cut down along the peel, following the shape of the fruit, removing any peel and white rind. Hold the fruit in your hand and carefully cut along both sides of each segment, going towards the center to free each segment. If you do this over a plate, you get all the beautiful juices from the fruit to add to the vinaigrette.

HEALTHY GRILLED CHICKEN, RED PEPPER, AND GOAT CHEESE SANDWICH

Steps:

• Spray chicken breast with non-stick cooking spray on each side (I use PAM extra virgin olive oil, but any kind will do).
• Squeeze about 1/4 of a lemon over each side of the chicken breast.
• Wash and chop fresh rosemary and sprinkle about HALF of the amount you have over the entire chicken breast.
• Salt, pepper, and paprika both sides of the chicken (just a pinch of salt, a good amount of pepper, and enough paprika to give your chicken breast some beautiful red color).
• Keep the red onion in its circular shape if you can (it's easiest for grilling in that shape) and slice the red pepper into pieces no bigger than the palm of your hand.
• Spray red onion and red pepper with olive oil spray
• Put chicken breast, red onion, and red pepper on grill and cook until chicken breast is no longer pink on the inside (I like to butterfly my chicken breast, which means that after the chicken has cooked on both sides for about 4-5 minutes, you give it a slice down the side, open it up, and put the inside back on the grill. You don't have to slice the entire chicken, I usually just try to open up the thickest part of the chicken, which is sometimes still pink, and make sure that part gets put directly on the grill).
• When the chicken starts looking like it only needs a few more minutes, add the splash the other 1/4 of the lemon and sprinkle the remaining rosemary on both sides (rosemary needs to be cooked for at least a minute or so, so make sure that wherever you put the rosemary gets grilled up a little bit).
• The chicken should take around 10 minutes, depending on how thick it is.
• Flip the red pepper and red onion when they start to get some darker grill marks (you want to make sure that they are nicely cooked, but not charred black). They shouldn't take longer than your chicken breast to cook.
• Toast your wheat bun (either throw it on the grill for a minute or warm it up in the toaster oven until it starts to brown.
• Spread the goat cheese on the warm bun.
• Spread the dijon on the other side of the bun
• Slice your grilled red pepper and onion into strips.
• Top the bun with red pepper, onion, chicken breast, and shredded lettuce.
• Enjoy!
• *I ate this last night with a side of Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips (which was a great combination), but for guests, I would recommend either a homemade light pasta salad or oven baked sweet potato steak fries to go with this dish!*.