Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Pasta

Made this for dinner last night. Turned out to be a great, light spring supper.



Here's how I did it:


I made it up, so there are no exact amounts. Just kind of eyeball it.

Small-size pasta, like small shells, small bowties, small elbows, etc. (I used about 8 oz for 2 people...planning for leftovers)
Fresh asparagus (amount to your liking, and depending on # of servings; I used 1 lb for 2 people….Jon and I love asparagus)
Olive oil
Butter
1-2 whole garlic cloves (to your liking)
Grape tomatoes
Diced grilled or store-bought rotisserie chicken (I used one good-sized breast for 2 people)
Black pepper and shredded Parmesan cheese, to taste

In a large pot, boil the pasta in salted water. In the meantime, cut the asparagus into pieces approximately the same size as your pasta. During the last 2-3 minutes of cooking time, toss the asparagus into the pasta pot to cook up to crisp-tender while the pasta finishes cooking

Peel the paper off the garlic, but don’t dice it up. In a large skillet add 3-4 TBS of olive oil, and 1-2 TBS of butter. Toss in the garlic and set to low-to medium heat; enough to melt the butter but not brown it. The garlic flavor will infuse through the oil/butter mixture.

Toss in a good handful of grape tomatoes and cook until the skin blisters – 3-4 minutes. Add diced, cooked chicken to heat through. Adjust the amounts of oil and butter if needed. You’ll lightly coat the pasta/asparagus mix with the butter/oil, so use that as a guide for quantity. You don’t want the pasta to be greasy, just flavorful.

Drain the pasta/asparagus, and add to the skillet. Toss gently to combine, and then transfer to a serving dish. Remove the garlic cloves. Serve hot, with a dash of fresh-ground black pepper and a sprinkle of shredded (better than grated) Parmesan cheese. This is also delicious cold.

Let me know if you whip this up some night. 

11 comments:

  1. I think I want that for breakfast...care to send the leftovers my way? Sounds and looks delicious!

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  2. You can't go wrong with Italian

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  3. That sounds really good. I will definitely give it a try....

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  4. viewed at full-size you can really appreciate the different textures of the shells, cheese, tomato skin, etc. Good job!

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  5. That looks so good. . . I am going to try this out for sure.

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  6. Very colorful and appetizing. I hope you saved some because I'm coming over!

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  7. This looks delicious! Thanks for the recipe. Sounds 'not too difficult' and healthy at the same time!

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  8. Looks great, and I usually don't care about dinner until breakfast is out of the way.

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  9. I'm getting hungry....

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  10. Yum! Nicely shot too, food is tricky to shoot I find. Where is that scratch and sniff widget?

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  11. Looks so good I just might put it on the menu for this week--with gluten free pasta, of course.

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What do you think?