Philadelphia Cooking Creme was on sale at the grocery store this week. I’ve wondered about trying it out but until now had resisted spending the money on it. But the sale pulled me in and I ended up buying two flavours: Herb and Garlic Light and Tomato Basil (which oddly enough is not listed on their website…)
I searched high and low for a recipe using the Herb and Garlic creme with chicken that used ingredients that I had in the house. This turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated. Although there are a number of recipes that have been published by Philly, nothing was jumping out at me. Also, it seems that the product is new enough that no one is coming up with their own recipe an sharing it with the world.
Finally I decided that I was just going to have to come up with something on my own. This is very difficult for me! Unlike my husband who has superhuman taste buds and somehow just knows what flavours go together, I stress out about it and freeze.
But I did it! I experimented and made up my very own chicken dish. This is what I did:
- season 4 chicken breasts with salt and pepper and bake in the oven (it took 28 minutes at 400 degrees)
- sauté chopped orange pepper and diced onion, add in cut up chicken breast
- add 1/4 cup water to the cooking creme, and heat in a sauce pan until warm
- mix the chicken and veggie mixture and herb and garlic cooking creme into noodles of your choice (I used Rigatoni because we were out of Penne)
How did it turn out? My husband loved it. I thought it was okay. If I were to do it again I would add a bit of tomato sauce. But my husband loves Alfredo sauce and I’m always more of a blush girl, so that probably explains the difference in opinion. My son loved the saucy chicken, which was a relief (he’s been very picky about eating chicken lately). He also enjoyed the peppers and noodles. A will all around for him!
Since I have another container of the cooking creme, I’ll have to experiment again. But whether I’ll try the product again after that is questionable. There is a crazy amount of saturated fat in a serving. And although in the past I haven’t been too bothered by nutrition labels, I just can’t get over feeding that much saturated fat to my one year old. A child really enhances your awareness of the world around you!
How much do you experiment in the kitchen? Any tips for me?
Close Encounters (of the Food Kind) 