Three Quick and Great Recipes

Okay, so a couple of friends came over for the weekend. There was ceremony on Friday, then a bridge over the creek got rebuilt Saturday morning and I got a second computer monitor--very che che!--on Saturday afternoon. I'm high tech, baby.
So no food on Friday, but on Saturday morning I made a nice omelet of sauteed ham, garlic, onion, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower and good cheddar cheese.
Madeleina one-upped me by making everyone a delicious smoothie of fresh cantaloupe, strawberries, banana, and tangerine in an organic vanilla yogurt with good water and a little orange juice. With just a little sugar. Damn, that was good.
Saturday night, after one of my friends had gone home, I made lime chicken--you know the one where I cut half a chicken breast in half (making four pieces of chicken out of one breast), then flour, egg and bread them in a mix of half-good breadcrumbs and half-good quality, grated parmesan cheese. Saute, turn, top with a little more parmesan, butcher ground black pepper and then squeeze lime juice onto them. Enough lime juice, like four full ripe limes for four pieces of chicken. Then bake for a few minutes at 350, till the cheese is a light brown and the chicken is cooked through.
But I also had a couple of beautiful, large, fresh sea scallops and couldn't resist making a little side dish with them.
So I sauteed fresh spinach in a bit of olive oil and garlic and used that as a bed. While that was cooking I floured the the scallops then put them in a hot pan with a bit more of that garlic and olive oil. A little butcher black pepper on them. Browned on one side, I turned them over, added a tablespoon of butter--that's all you need for four large scallops--and an ounce or so of good bleu cheese. When those married, I tossed three strawberries I'd sliced into the pan, pulled the scallops and put them on the little bed of spinach. Then I squeezed two limes into the garlic/ bleu cheese/strawberry butter, brought it to heat, and topped the scallops with that. The strawberries were over the top but I've been experimenting with using them now and then and they add a decadently sweet snarl to the lime and bleu cheese butter.
Then last night, Madeleina had friends over to make a video commercial for their drama class. The project was supposed to run about two hours long, but by six or so, and not nearly done, Madeleina asked me to make them dinner.
So I took a pound of good hot sausages from the freezer and ran them under hot water for a few minutes, then put them in a pot of water and brought that to a boil to get them cooked.
In another pot I brought salted water to a boil and cooked a pound of fucilli.
In a third pot I put small pieces of fresh broccoli, cauliflower, zuccini and yellow squash to start them cooking. When they were al dente I took them off and cooled them in a colander, then put two big handfuls of spinach in the still hot water for a minute. Then I took that off.
I put a big sauce pan on the stove, loaded in three heaping tablespoons of that garlic in olive oil I always have on hand and added a diced red onion to it. When that was going good I added four diced Roma tomatoes and six cleaned and diced scallions. Then I took the sausages off the fire and sliced them, then tossed them into the pan with the garlic/onions/tomatoes/scallions. When the sausage slices browned, I added the veggies, a can of good chicken stock and--okay, I'm cheating here--a family-sized can of cream of chicken soup.
I let things get married in the pan, then tossed in some parmesan cheese for a bit of bite.
When the sauce was ready I mixed it with the pasta and voila! A nice dish.
Okay, you have permission to try those at home. They're freaking fabulous.
Bon appetit! everyone.