HEALTHY EATS WITH RACHEL AND SASHA

Posted on March 17, 2022 by Dr. Christine Grimaldi

This week’s recipe: Creamy Tuscan chicken pasta (inspired from Healthyfitnessmeals.com)

By Sasha Kochetova

We are excited to announce Rachel and Sasha’s Healthy Eats: A weekly journey on our path to healthy eating.

Rachel says, “Having a disability makes it difficult for me to enjoy all the food out there. Being in the community also makes it difficult to afford food and go shopping for it.” Does that mean that everyone with disabilities has to stay on prepacked frozen dinners? In the long run, it is not teaching all of us healthy nutrition and accountability. So I have decided to teach everyone out there weekly healthy recipes, that is easy. I will try to make these with my friend and assistant Sasha.

Rules Of The Game:

You have to be open to trying new food

You need to budget your allowances to buying healthy ingredients

You need to learn how to buy ingredients that will be sustainable

Dr. Christine told me about a great friend and colleague named Alexa, she used to work with at Columbia University that developed a great blog called “Sustainable Pantry.” Christine said that it was a brilliant lesson book turned into a blog, to help people of all abilities and from all works of life to purchase healthy food that would last a bit, all while being healthy and fun to cook.

This week, Rachel and I decided on a creamy Tuscan chicken pasta for our Tuesday night dinner. The ingredients in our recipe are:

Gluten free rigatoni pasta
1.5lb boneless chicken breast cut into bite sized pieces
2 tbsp. olive oil
3 garlic cloves minced
1 tsp Italian seasoning
Salt and ground pepper for taste
8 oz sun-dried tomatoes in oil drained and chopped
3 cups almond milk
2 tbsp. gluten-free flour
3 cups baby spinach
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

Instructions:

Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the pasta to al dente.
Chop the chicken into pieces and place into a bowl. Stir in the oil, garlic, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper.
Heat a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Once hot, add chicken in a single layer and cook for 2-3 minutes, or until golden brown. Stir in the sun dried tomatoes and continue to cook until cooked through which is about 5-7 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a small bowl whisk the almond milk and flour until no visible lumps.
Pour the milk mixture over the cooked chicken in the pan, and mix well. Allow the sauce to bubble for a few minutes and thicken up which should take no more than 3-4 minutes.
Once the sauce is done, add spinach and stir until wilted.
Add cooked pasta together with grated parmesan and stir to combine.

ENJOY!

Our takeaway:

The chicken pasta dish was very good. The pasta was a little tough which could’ve been fixed by cooking the pasta longer. The chicken was very soft and good. Cooked to perfection! We would recommend this dish to all pasta lovers. The chicken was a great addition for added protein and the creamy sauce added a great Italian flair. This dish took about 30-40 minutes to make and was fairly simple for beginners like us. 10/10 would recommend.

LEARN AND BURN

While on the Fit Kidz yoga mat today, I learned the meaning behind resiliency while in tree pose. I kept falling down but I got up regardless of this. Resiliency is about toughness and bouncing back from difficult situations. I have been practicing resiliency outside of yoga in my everyday life as well.

NOTE TO SELF

Make sure to cook pasta all the way through.