Happy Anniversary to Me and Grilled Chicken Pasta

Today is our 9th wedding anniversary! I can't believe it's been that long already, yet I feel like I've known E forever. Tonight we are having dinner at Elmwood at Sparks. I'm excited! I've always wanted to eat dinner there. Todd and Carrie gave us a gift certificate so now we are "forced" to try it. :) I like that they try to keep their ingredients local. If anybody is ever in this area, you can check out their website at http://www.elmwoodcatering.com/. Oh, and they cater (obviously!) They catered our friends' wedding and the food was sooo good. I've had lunch there several times and absolutely love it, but now I finally get to try their dinners and I'm so looking forward to the ravioli. I've had my eye on that for several months now.

I made a really good (and very simple) pasta dish for lunch yesterday. I didn't take a pic, but the recipe is sooo simple:

Grilled Chicken Pasta

1 grilled chicken breast (seasoned however you wish), chopped
2 cups cooked whole-grain penne pasta
1/2 cup red grapes, cut in half
2 Tbsp celery, chopped
1/2 cup light sour cream
1 Tbsp fresh basil
Salt and pepper to taste

Throw all of the ingredients into a bowl and stir. Enjoy!

I grilled the chicken and boiled the penne while I was getting everything else together. Yesterday I ate it warm and today I heated it up very slightly. It's okay cold, but much better warm. I seasoned the chicken with this new seasoning I got from Tastefully Simple. Oh, how I love Tastefully Simple. It's called Green Tea Peppercorn Seasoning. Divine! I'm having a party next month so I'm going to have to stock up on it since it's just seasonal.

For the basil, I only use fresh basil. You can use 1 tsp dried if you like, but it just doesn't taste the same. There's nothing like fresh basil. We still have a basil plant left from last year. Actually, we now have two. I cut a nice stem off the plant and rooted it. I didn't use any rooting hormones or anything like that. I just cut the stem, put it in a jar full of water and left it in the window sill. We don't get any direct sunlight in the kitchen so it only had indirect light. After a while you'll notice a slime ball growing where it was cut and then a few days later you'll start to see the roots growing. I'm so fascinated with all of this!

Anyway, I have lots to do. I have a lot of baking to do for Saturday and I have so much I need to plant in the garden. Will there ever be enough time to do everything???

Grilled Chicken and Roasted Potatoes

Okay. Who doesn't know how to grill chicken? I love grilling. E decided he wanted to try a different seasoning on the chicken. It turned out great. Basically, it's just 2 Tbsp seasoned salt, 1 Tbsp Rosemary and 1 Tbsp Thyme. Mix all three together and rub on the chicken before grilling.
I wanted to have some roasted potatoes with the meal. I just cut up a few small potatoes, sprinkled them with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and popped them in the oven until they started to brown. Very simple, but quite good.

This meal was very quick and very simple. The only part of it that took any decent amount of time was the broccoli salad. Still, it was worth it. I like to have just simple meals every now and then.