Sunday, March 15, 2009

Chicken, Spinach, Roasted Red Peppers and Pasta

Do you ever have a night where you just pull out whatever you have in the fridge and try to make a dinner out of it? I am sure you have.
This meal is a result of one of those nights. I had frozen spinach, roasted red peppers, chicken tenders, all sorts of cheese, and cooked pasta in the fridge. I had a red onion too. So, I just went at it with no sort of real plan and it turned into a really tasty pasta dinner.
It came together fast and my kids ate it without complaining.
The sauce ended up being thin and light, just barely coating the pasta with a great flavor. We topped it off with freshly grated Asiago and called it a night!

Chicken, Spinach, Roasted Red Peppers, and Pasta by Mary Ann
whole wheat pasta, cooked and drained
1 red onion, chopped
1 pkg. chicken breast tenders
1 10-oz pkg. frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1 cup roasted red peppers, chopped
1 1/2 cups shredded cheese (I used a mixture of fontina, aged cheddar and mozzarella)
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup skim milk
salt, pepper and Italian seasoning, to taste

Heat 1 Tbls of olive oil in an electric skillet. Add the red onion and saute, for a few minutes. Add chicken tenders and brown on both sides. Add a little bit of chicken broth and cover. Cook until chicken is cooked through.
Remove chicken and onion from the pan.
Add a couple of Tbls of flour to the bits left in the pan and whisk well for 1-2 minutes. Add 1 cup of chicken broth and the skim milk. Whisk in the cheese, until it melts and makes a thin sauce, add more chicken broth, if necessary.
Stir in the cooked pasta, chopped roasted red peppers, and spinach.
Chop the chicken into bite size pieces and add it to the pasta mixture. Mix well and season with salt, pepper, and/or Italian Seasoning. Serve warm.


Up next- Fun Foods for the Kids

8 comments:

Marthe said...

This pastadish looks absolutely perfect: just the thing for me!!

Aggie said...

I have so many of those nights! And usually something great comes out b/c of it! Like this pasta...yum Mary Ann!!

Karen said...

I cook like this often - use whatever is there :) As a result none of my pasta dishes turn out the same way twice!

Maria said...

I love nights like that! The pasta dish looks great, glad it was so easy too!

Not Another Omnivore said...

I really like the hunk of red pepper on the side for flair!

NAOmni

Pamela said...

Wow...this looks wonderful. I love roasted red peppers, and I just think you can't go wrong with them! Nice job.

Meghan said...

This looks so good - all of my favorite ingredients!

Anonymous said...

Yum. Garbage pasta is what we call it. Using all the leftovers in the fridge, because I hate waste.