How to Cook Dinner

Here is The Child's recipe for Chicken in Puttanesca Sauce over Polenta:

First, you have to don your super fab flamenco apron that The Neighbor brought you from Espana.

You also have to load the soundtrack to "High School Musical" and crank it up until your mother has to say "Will you turn that music down!" (But since mom was singing and dancing along I know she likes it. It was probably just too loud for her old ears).












It's a good idea to read through the recipe once before you start cooking.

Thaw 3 chicken breasts and chop into chunks. You'll probably have to yell at The Cat for trying to steal some.













You need to chop 8 anchovy fillets. Which are nasty.


















And 6 cloves of garlic. Which are not.

You'll also need:
3 T. capers, drained
1 t. crushed red pepper flakes (if you want but I leave them out because I don't like things too spicy).
1/4 c. flat-leaf parsely, chopped
1 28-oz. can crushed tomatoes. All I had was tomato sauce, though, but it was fine.











Use a cherry pitter to pit 20 Kalamata olives. Yell at your dad if he tries to snitch one because you've already counted them out.
















Once everything is chopped up you have your mise en place and are ready to go. I'm wicked good at mise en place.











This is about the time when you should take a few minutes to dance to "High School Musical" and show your mom all your moves.















Check the recipe one more time. I've got a tube of polenta sliced into rounds. I've sauteed the chicken in extra-virgin olive oil and once it's cooked through I'm going to transfer it to a plate to keep warm.

Now 3 T. of EVOO go into the skillet. Cook the garlic, anchovies and pepper flakes until the anchovies melt into the oil and the garlic is tender. Add the olives, capers, tomatoes, parsley and some black pepper to taste. Bring the sauce to a bubble, add the chicken back into the sauce and turn down the heat to medium. Simmer everything for 5 minutes.

While the sauce simmers, cook your polenta slices in some oil. I used our griddle but you can do it in a skillet if you want.



Plate up a few polenta slices and top with the sauce. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese and serve to your family. They will spend a lot of time telling you how delicious dinner is. And there won't be any left-overs. Sorry.