All the cool kids are doing it. Martha loved it. Steve Martin did it, and tweeted about it. Every blogger who ever blogged a blog is blogging it. It’s the one-pot pasta dish – also unattractively knows as a “dump dinner”, wherein one puts all the ingredients into a pot, cooks it in however-many minutes or less, and there is a glorious, healthy, perfectly cooked meal on the table in less time than it takes to _______.
So now I gotta do it too. There are dozens of these recipes floating around online, in addition to the original Puliganese tomato-basil pasta, and I imagine it’s a pretty easy formula to figure out. One pound of pasta to X amount of meat, Y liquid, and Z vegetables = dinner! But are they any good? Let’s find out. First I must apologize to whoever’s blog ended up on one of those Buzzfeed listicles – I copied and pasted the ingredient list and directions, but did not get the blog title. I hate to not give credit where credit is due. I tried searching, but found the same recipe on a dozen sites, each claiming they came up with it. I don’t know what to believe anymore. So whoever you are – thank you for your recipe, I’m sorry I’m not giving you proper credit, but maybe read to the end before you get upset.
Here we have:
1 lb. BSCB (That’s boneless, skinless chicken breasts for those people who don’t live on food websites)
1 lb. box linguine (I even bought the pot-sized, to save valuable noodle-breaking time!)
8 baby carrots, cut into strips
1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
1 bunch of scallions, cut into strips
4 cloves of minced garlic
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon corn starch
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
32 oz. chicken broth
¼ cup soy sauce
2 teaspoons olive oil
Isn’t all this lovely?
I even prep in advance and have it all ready to go at dinner time!
Recipe red flag: This recipe says it serves six, but calls for only ½ pound of chicken. This means only one and one-third ounces of chicken per person. Who calls that a meal? Even with the veggies, even with the pasta, I can’t imagine anyone being satisfied with three bites of meat. I doubled it blithely and with no regrets.
You just dump it all into a pot – chicken, pasta, then everything else. Bring to a boil, stir, lower heat, cover, and cook for 15 minutes.
Here’s how it turns out:
It’s okay. Not great. The noodles are a little chewy. The veggies and chicken turned out pretty well. The garlic, surprisingly, didn’t overtake the whole dish, but the flavor was pretty one-note. All you really taste is soy sauce and salt. This is one of those meals that fills all the requirements for a meal – different food groups, filling, etc., but isn’t exactly great. Better than frozen food. Slightly better than take-out. I don’t think I’d make this again.
Again – my apologies to whoever created this recipe. I really tried to find you and give you props, but maybe you don’t want these particular props. I’d be upset if I saw one of my original recipes popping up online with no credit given, so if you see this and want the shout-out, please contact me and I’ll edit you right in here.
illdothedisheslater 