A Completely Made Up Dinner

It's not very often that I don't even use a base recipe to make something. Tonight was the first night in weeks that Brandon (my husband) was home for dinner because he's a baseball coach and has had practice and games every afternoon and night. I had some asparagus and mushrooms I was saving for the rare occasion because I know how much he likes them. I had remembered seeing a recipe of asparagus and mushrooms in some kind of wine sauce, and I thought it was in Martha Stewart's Everyday Food that I get, but I couldn't find it. So I went to www.MarthaStewart.com and still couldn't find it so I decided to make it up.

First I sauteed two chicken breasts in oil and butter (oil so it didn't burn and butter because it tastes good) for a few minutes on each side until it started getting browned. Then I put them in a baking dish in the oven to sit at 350 degrees until done. In the mean time I sliced the 3/4 pint button mushrooms and the bunch of asparagus I had and put them in the pan the chicken had sauteed in with the oil and butter. After letting them cook a few minutes I added salt, pepper, dried French thyme, and Marsala wine. I was going to let it reduce but I wanted it to be saucy so I was going to reduce the heat and just keep it warm until I realized I wanted the chicken to be saucy too. So I poured the vegetables over the chicken and baked them until Brandon got home. As a side dish I warmed some rolls and made mashed potatoes out of a packet.

Now you have to realize I don't usually make anything out of a box or packet. I actually despise it. There's usually things in there that you don't know about and many things you don't need, like preservatives, salt, sugar, and fat just to name a few. But all I had was one potato and I had gotten the packet a while ago in case of emergencies. So I chopped up the potato and boiled it until practically falling apart. Then I mashed it in the water and added the packet of potatoes, stirred, and viola! Half real, half fake, still good, and Brandon never knew I had changed anything.

Overall the dinner was good. Not great, not impressive, but it was a good sit down dinner that we haven't had in a long time. This is probably something I would make again, most likely a little different but I'm not sure how at the moment. I'll just have to see what I feel like and what I have available at the time.