M&M Food Market (a store that sells pre-made frozen meals) used to have this amazing Chicken Primavera Pasta dish that took no more than 10 minutes to make and I LOVED it. Recently they rebranded the company and revamped a bunch of their dishes and unfortunately, this was one of them. I went looking for a similar recipe, hoping to find something just as good and just as easy.
We prepared this last Saturday so it was the first dish on our “cook more” mission that we did together. Jeff makes pasta exactly right (never ever over-cooked) so I chopped all the veggies and sliced the chicken.
The recipe
Garlic Chicken Primavera from tasty.co. The picture looked very similar to the one from M&M’s so I didn’t even look at the other search results.
Ingredient changes
I used a tablespoon or so more olive oil because I used my biggest pot and I needed to cover the bottom to more effectively cook the chicken. I replaced the tomato with red pepper and the asparagus with broccoli in an attempt to make this recipe more closely resemble the M&M’s dish. Also because Jeff and I both hate tomatoes (yes, we will eat ketchup, yes, we will eat tomato-based sauces, no, we will not eat tomatoes if they resemble their original form).
Ease (or not) of prep
From chopping and slicing to boiling pasta to dumping everything in the same pot, I’d say this took about 45 minutes to prepare, which isn’t too bad. I try to make a habit of washing, chopping, and portioning vegetables the day I buy them so, in the future, I’ll make a dish of these veggies so when we decide to make it again, I can skip this step. It’s more of a time reallocation than a time saver, but it’s like how on cooking shows they have little dishes with all their ingredients – anything to make actual cooking faster.
Boyfriend Test: Pass with flying colours
After a couple bites, Jeff turned to me and said, “of the food we’ve had so far, this is my absolute favourite.” He also ate it like someone was going to take it from him so it must have been good.
Picky Eater Test: PASS PASS PASS!
It’s not the same as the M&M’s one I was attempting to recreate… it was better! The vegetables were lightly cooked so still crunchy and flavourful, the garlic wasn’t overpowering, and you can’t go wrong with Parmesan cheese. It’s worth every minute it took to make it and I’m pretty sure that’s what we’re having for dinner again this weekend. One change: I’m putting Jeff on chopping duty too.
The Curmudgeonly Cook 