five sisters: Dinner for One

The other night, as is sometimes the case, I found myself in my apartment alone on a Saturday night (I'm not sad about this, I promise) and hungry! One challenge I consistently face is making dinner for just myself. Occasionally, I will cook for my sister or roommate, and in these instances can unload any excessive leftovers on them. But since I started cooking semi-regularly in college, finding that meal that can be tailored to feed just myself once or twice without being from the frozen food aisle at Jewel has been difficult. In recent years, one of my go-to Dinner For One meals is chicken in a lemon butter sauce. It started as Chicken Piccata, which is a great dish, but this simple version is a little less pretentious and does not involve capers... It is very easy and comes together very quickly.

I like to make this dish with angel hair pasta and prepare some kind of vegetable. Tonight the vegetable of choice was asparagus.

The Lineup:

Chicken - either thin cut breasts or tenders (I made 4 chicken tenders)

3 - 4 T. Flour with a dash of salt and pepper mixed in

2 T. butter

Lemon juice

1/4 - 1/3 C. chicken stock

White wine - this is optional. I used Chardonnay

Angel hair pasta (or apparently "Thin Spaghetti")

Asparagus tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and start a pot of water to boil.

While the oven is preheating, thoroughly coat each piece of chicken in the flour mixture. At the same time, melt 1 or 2 tablespoons of butter over in a skillet over high heat. The exact amount of butter just depends on how much you don't care at that particular moment.

Once the oven is ready, place the asparagus in the oven and set the timer for 10-15 minutes (depending on the size of the stalks).

Cook your desired amount of pasta until it's al dente.

Once the butter is hot, place each piece of chicken in the skillet, turning until all pieces are fully cooked.

This should take about 10 minutes depending on the thickness of the pieces of chicken. In the mean time your pasta should be done and the asparagus close.

Once the chicken is cooked through, remove it from the skillet. It should be golden brown on the outside. The butter that's still in the skillet should also be a light golden brown.

While the remaining butter in the skillet is hot, stir in the chicken stock, juice from half a lemon, and the white wine. Let this cook down for a few minutes. You can whisk in little flour to thicken the sauce if you want.. I did.

When the sauce is at the desired thickness, place the chicken back in the skillet to reheat and coat in the lemon butter sauce.

By now the asparagus should be done.

Once the chicken is hot again and coated in the sauce, you can serve everything. It's not the most colorful dish but what it lacks in that department it makes up for in flavor.