Mild but good

Tonight I made Chicken Breasts in Pumpkin Sauce. I'm a huge fan of pumpkin. I make a fabulous pumpkin dip that is a hit at parties and some really good pumpkin muffins. I haven't made the muffins in a few years though because one holiday season, I made muffins as gifts. Dozens and dozens of muffins...muffins everywhere. Zeb and I got to the point where the sight of them just made us gag. We're coming out of our pumpkin muffin aversion though. I considered making them this past Christmas but never got around to it. By next Christmas, I should be in a place where I actually look forward to them. Again they're great muffins...in moderation.

Anyway, tonight's dinner...very few ingredients...no chopping. In a way it's great to have a dish that doesn't require chopping because that means fewer dishes to clean up, but I don't have to do the dishes when I cook and I LOVE my knives. Zeb got me a killer set of knives for my birthday (okay, maybe "killer" is a bad choice of words). These knives are amazing - everything chops so perfectly. Zeb has several scars from them but I have yet to get anything more than a chipped nail (knock on wood). I used to dread mincing herbs because our old set, while functional, merely mascerated the leaves without actually getting through. I would even bring out the food processor just to get a fine mince. Now it's so fantastic! Mincing and fine dicing are a snap! I'll even mince garlic rather than put it through the press just to get to use my knives. Oh they're so fabulous.

But again, I didn't have to use them tonight...sigh. Nope, just chicken sauteed in garlic, olive oil and butter. The recipe said to pull the chicken out of the pan once it was done and then pour in 1/2 cup of whipping cream and get all the browned bits up. Well, I think there was a step missing, like remove pan from heat. The cream was bubbling like mad and I think got burned. I went ahead and added the pumpkin, white pepper, salt and nutmeg but it just tasted awful. I ended up tossing out the sauce and starting over. Didn't have any of the browned chicken and garlic bits but it also didn't taste like crap. I didn't think I was going to like the sauce, even remade, because it was so mild in flavor. I tend to go after very bold flavors and there is nothing bold about this dish. However, the sauteed chicken topped with the mild pumpkin sauce and almonds (which were supposed to be toasted but I was tired and a bit lazy) turned out to be quite good. Not New Year's in Vegas-more like your grandmother putting a warm fuzzy blanket she made herself on you after you've dozed off, a gentle ahhh flavor. Although the pumpkin was a main ingredient, it wasn't as strong a note as I was expecting. I will definitely try this recipe again - with my added directions for the sauce.

The one thing dinner was missing though was a side. I'm terrible about putting sides with a main dish. Usually, we just throw the main dish on top of couscous or rice but this dish didn't feel like it would mesh with either. The sauce wasn't the kind the runs down for the couscous or rice to sop up; it stayed with the chicken. I guess I could have done some sort of vegetable but I never think of that until I'm staring at the plate thinking: Gee there's a lot of empty space. Oh well, I'm working on it.