A Simple Saute

I had planned on posting about last night's chicken dinner. It was an herbed lemon chicken cooked in the crock pot. And I should have known better. When I put it all in the pot, it smelled fantastic, and it smelled fantastic while cooking- bright and lemony and herby. I was even going to contribute to WHB this week with it. Upon tasting it though... Seriously, this was one of those rare moments (and I mean very rare) where dinner went into the garbage. Thankfully, I had made a side dish that turned into dinner. Not only was it incredibly simple, but incredibly tasty.

I started with a zucchini fresh out of the garden. (Woo-hoo!) I sliced it into thin slices to quickly saute and turned around to see if I had any parmesan cheese. Ah, I did, and next to it I discovered a pint of mushrooms that needed to be used before heading out camping on Saturday. So I sliced the mushrooms and put them in the saute pan first with a tiny drizzle of olive oil. I stirred them occasionally, and when they got to the point where they were obviously well-cooked, I added the zucchini slices, a pinch of salt, black pepper, and crushed red pepper flakes. I tossed this together for about 5 minutes, or until the zucchini was lightly cooked. Then at the last moment, I tossed about 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese with the vegetables. The saute was light and bright and awesome with a side of rice. Unless you are my husband. :-)

Andy arrived home a few minutes after the kids and I had sat down to dinner. I told him to ignore the chicken, but to help himself to the vegetables and rice, and I proceeded to tell him that the veggies were lightly cooked with salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper flake. Don't ask me what he was thinking, but he took that to mean that he needed to season his own veggies. So he had double the amount of crushed red pepper flakes, and it was a bit warm for his tastes. Nevertheless, the saute was a hit and will most likely be repeated many times this summer.