quick and easy meals for 1 or 2

Pan grilled chicken with pasta and marinara sauce.

Gammy and I had this for supper tonight with some poppop homemade bread and red wine (can you believe we had wine?) We heated up some marinara sauce we had put up in the freezer, or

First the marinara sauce. You can buy some good already prepared stuff in the store. If you are going to do that, I like buitoni. It’s refrigerated and in the cheese section. Or, you can make batch of your own and keep the extra in the fridge or freezer for other days. It’s easy.

Marinara sauce, this will make enough for today. Add another can or 2 of tomatoes and increase the rest of the stuff proportionately and put the pot with the extra in the fridge overnight. The next day spoon it into small plastic zip-loc bags. Squeeze the air out and lay flat in the freezer for fast weeknight meals.

1 28 Ounce Can Diced Italian Tomatoes

2 Cloves Garlic, Finely Minced
2 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Salt & Pepper To Taste
3 Tablespoons Finely Chopped Basil or 1 Tbsp. dried
Dash Of Red Pepper Flakes (Optional)

1 tsp. sugar


Heat the oil in a heavy saucepan over medium heat, and add the garlic, the basil, and pepper flakes. As soon as the garlic begins to sizzle, but before it takes on color, add the tomatoes. Turn the heat to high, and as soon as the sauce begins to bubble, turn back down to medium low.

Season with salt and pepper, Cook for another 10 -12 minutes and remove from the heat. Mix in the sugar. Use for any purpose that you would use your usual tomato sauce, whether it is to top pasta, in baked casseroles or for vegetables.

I put 6 thawed out chicken tenders in a bowl and added olive oil to cover, sprinkled basil, garlic powder and ground black pepper. Then a dash or 2 of red wine. Mixed it up to cover all the tenders. I put a pot on for the pasta and a frying pan for the chicken. When the water started to boil the pan was hot. Put the pasta in the water mixed it right away and added a dash of salt. Put the chicken in the pan. They both were done at the same time. We served them up on the same plate with some marinara sauce on both with some parmesan cheese for topping. We had a small dish of extra virgin olive oil for dipping the bread in. The whole thing took about 30 minutes and it was great!!