Tender-Rounds Murphy

I ran out of Fri-Chik or this would be Fri-Chik Murphy. As soon as I get some more vege-chicken, I'll do the Vege-chicken Murphy recipe. My wife and I love this little Italian restaurant in Tyler. It was the first restaurant we ate at after we moved there back in 1995. We'd been separated for a while and I was sure glad to see my Sweet Baboo again.

Little Italy, the restaurant in question, makes a dish called Chicken Murphy. Chicken Murphy is a pasta dish made with an amazing pasta sauce that's something somewhere between a marinara sauce and an Alfredo sauce. We've tried for years to duplicate it with mixed results. One of the problems with duplicating it is that the sauce used to vary depending on which chef was in the kitchen the night you went to the restaurant. 

I think we've finally got it, though. It's an unusual "Italian" dish in that it uses jalapenos in the sauce. It sounds strange, but the stuff is amazing. It's a sherry wine sauce, but like they say, the alcohol cooks off. I thought, if the alcohol cooks off, what's the point of putting it in.  So here's what I came up with in our latest experiment.  It takes a couple of diversions from the original sauce, but it's really pretty good. You can tell it's good by how much I overdid the sauce in the picture.

Murphy Sauce Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup margarine or butter
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1-1/2 cup grated parmesan
• 1/4 cup spaghetti sauce
• Small can mushrooms or 1/2 cup fresh slice mushrooms
• 2-3 whole jalepenos
• 1/2 bell pepper sliced
• Sparkling grape juice or sparkling apple cranberry juice
• Loma Linda Tender Rounds or Worthington Fri-Chik or

Directions for the sauce:

1.  Slice jalepenos into round segments. Cut out and remove the seeds and centers so the jalapenos will be milder while still retaining their flavor
2. Place butter in skillet and sautee jalapenos, bell peppers and mushrooms until softened
3. Add evaporated milk, garlic powder, Parmesan and spaghetti sauce
4. Heat till bubbling. Add 2-3 tablespoons of sparkling juice. Grape works, but I like the apple-cranberry better. I discovered it by accident when Walmart was selling bottles of the stuff for a dollar after the Christmas season. I wish now I'd bought the whole case of it they had on the clearance rack. 
5. Add Tender-Rounds, Fri-chik or Diced-Chik as you wish.
6. Bring to a simmer and cover. Make spaghetti according to directions on the box.

Serving suggestion:

Ladle sauce over a bed of spaghetti. Serve with salad and wheat rolls.


Alternate suggestion:

•  Pour spaghetti sauce in a skillet
• Add Tender Rounds and heat.
• Works like spaghetti and meatballs 
• Also tasty with salad and wheat rolls.

Bon appetite!

Tom
(c) 2015