Firehouse recipes (second in a series)

I am a “foodie.” Next to firefighting and my family, cooking and wine are my passions. I worked in the wine industry for eight years, starting my career as a stock boy in college at a liquor store the size of Fry’s Marketplace. I had always been fascinated by wine and worked with an amazing manager who recognized that and took me from the keg cooler out to the wine floor. We sold hundreds of wines at the store, and he trained me to know and appreciate all the different kinds of wines.

When I first moved to Arizona, I worked at a small wine shop called Bacchus Wine Made Simple, a family run shop that sold all small production boutique wines. I was there full time and helped grow the store into one of the most popular small wine shops in the Valley. I enjoyed meeting and wine tasting with the winemakers and sales reps and learning the in’s and out’s of the business.

In 2006 I moved to San Francisco and fulfilled a pipe dream of working at a winery one day. My first job in the city was as a wine broker, and I quickly found out that I didn’t like to cold call people and left that job to work as a wine specialist at the Viansia Winery in Sonoma.  I was in heaven; I worked at the winery and at their Enoteca (a off-site wine tasting bar). It was like a master class in wine, and I soaked up all of it like a sponge. I left California to return to Arizona to pursue my fire career; I got picked up by the Maricopa Fire Department and could not be happier.

This recipe is part of the firehouse tradition of passed-on recipes. It got to the point that we needed to make a conscious decision to eat other dinners and take time away from the dish for awhile, a decision that my cardiologist was very happy with, as it’s not diet food.

Fast and easy sun-dried chicken alfredo

Prep time: 5 minutes
Difficulty: easy

Ingredients:
• Three chicken breasts
• 2 jars of alfredo (I use one jar of Classico Garlic Alfredo and one jar of Creamy Alfredo)
• 1 jar of sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, Julian cut
• 1 clove garlic or ½ teaspoon of diced (the more the merrier in my book)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1-2 lbs. of dried pasta of your choice (MFD prefers angel hair)

In a large sauce pan, using medium-high heat, heat up the olive oil that came in the sun-dried tomatoes jar, add the chicken (diced into bite-sized pieces), season with salt and pepper and brown the chicken. Once the chicken is browned, add the garlic and the tomatoes, and let the tomatoes heat up for a few minutes. Next, add the Alfredo sauce, mix and let simmer. In a large pot add your pasta to boiling water; once the pasta is cooked (approximately 7-8 minutes.) the sauce is ready.

Plate the pasta, add the sauce and enjoy.

Photo by Michael K. Rich

(A version of this article appeared in the July issue of InMaricopa News)