Recipe Testing : Broccoli "Pesto"

I absolutely love making pesto at home, but sometimes I want a sauce that is a bit lighter and more nutritious. The other night, I knew I wanted to make some combination of broccoli, pasta and chicken sausgage, but I didn’t want to just sautee all of the ingredients above. Instead, I made a pesto-like sauce (if you can call it that) out of the broccoli.

Ingredients:
- 2 large heads of broccoli
- 1 large glove of garlic
- Pasta (I like orecchiette for this because the “sauce” gets into the little shells)
- Red pepper flakes
- Salt/Pepper
- Olive oil
- Amylu Italian chicken sausage

Directions:
- Boil broccoli (with stems cut off) in a large pot of salted water. Cook it a little bit more than you would if you were preparing it normally
- Drain broccoli and then using a very sharp knife, cut the broccoli very finely.
- Combine garlic, olive oil, red pepper flakes and broccoli into a sauce pan
- Cook on medium thoroughly until flavors have combined
- Cook pasta normally
- Grill chicken sausage and cut into small pieces
- Combine broccoli, pasta and sausage.
- Serve with parmesan cheese

Super simple! Its also a great way to sneak vegetables into a familiar pasta dish.

Recipe Testing: Parmesan Chicken

Last week I had some friends over for dinner and wanted to cook a gluten free chicken recipe. I threw this together using what I had and it was awesome! Definitely one of my new favorite recipes, it has so much flavor and is nice and healthy.

(I meant to take pictures of the finished product, but we ate it too quickly)

Ingredients:
- One package of boneless, skinless chicken breast (I like the thin cutlets)
- One plastic container of grated or shredded Parmesan cheese
- 2 eggs 
- 1 tablespoon of dried basil
- 1 tablespoon of dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
- salt / pepper to taste

Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Combine parmesan cheese with basil, oregano, cayenne and salt and pepper in a bowl.
- Beat eggs in a bowl
- Dip chicken breasts into beaten eggs
- And then dip chicken breasts in parm mixture
- Place on a baking sheet with parchment paper
- Bake for 20 minutes (or until cooked through) at 350 degrees