Better Homes and Gardens Chicken and Vegetable Spaghetti

I have been lucky with my two boys and their eating habits. Every couple of weeks when I turn on morning television there seems to be a chief trying to find dishes to 'hide' vegetables for kids. Trust me I understand all about kids not wanting to eat certain foods, or even try something that looks unusual. However, I have never hidden any vegetables, because for whatever reason, my two boys absolutely love any type of fruit or vegetable. I feel lucky for this fact and use vegetables daily in my meal plans. The August issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine had a recipe for Chicken and Vegetable Spaghetti, which included multiple vegetables, and looked perfect for my vegetable loving children.

This recipe has 10 ingredients (if you include the optional items). The total prep and cooking time is approximately 35 minutes. I have never seen broccollini in any of the stores around her, so I substituted regular broccoli. Additionally, I used red cherry tomatoes, there are never any yellow to be found anywhere near me and  i added the salt and crushed red pepper. I left our the dried parsley flakes, mostly because I couldn't find the bottle I have in my spice cupboard and since it was optional I didn't buy more. The biggest change that I made was to use homemade chicken stock. I love homemade stock and it is one of the easiest ways to save money ( I will post the recipe sometime in the next couple of weeks). I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

On the plate, this recipe looks delicious. However, there were a few problems with the dish. I don't know if it's just me, but the taste of the frozen pearl onions was not pleasant. They had a slightly slimy texture and a bitter taste, that I didn't care for. I believe taking the extra time to soak and caramelize fresh pearl onions would have benefited this recipe greatly. It was almost as if there were too many things competing on the plate for attention. I think the recipe would be benefit from the onions being removed or using fresh and caramelizing. However, I must say that my two boys liked this recipe, especially my two-year-old, so it's kid friendly and easy to prepare, which is always a plus.


For the recipe go to Better Homes and Gardens Chicken and Vegetable Spaghetti.