Katie's Pesto Pasta

You know what happens when your unemployment runs out and your husband only gets paid twice a month?

You run out of groceries in the days before your husbands next pay day that's what happens!

Well, you don't run completely out of food, you just become limited on what you can actually make.

There are a few items that you can always count on me being stocked up on. Pasta and chicken just happen to be two of those items. I threw this recipe together after seeing a similar recipe on allrecipes.com. It was surprisingly good, both Daniel and I had seconds. I've never used pesto before and after a mis-communication between Daniel and I last fall, he brought me home three jars of the stuff. I requested three jars of brushcetta, still not sure why he then brought home pesto but all is good. I contemplated adding some cream cheese to the pesto sauce, but I was afraid it wouldn't turn out so I left it out. If someone is brave enough to add the cream cheese please let me know how it turns out!

Pesto Pasta~

Source: Me

Ingredients:

1 lb. rigatoni pasta, cooked and drained

2 md. chicken breast, cubed and cooked

2 tbsp. butter

1 roasted red pepper, finely chopped

1 roma tomato, finely chopped

1- 8.1 oz jar of Classico pesto sauce

salt

pepper

Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1.) In a large pot, fill 3/4 way full of water. Bring to a boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente.

2.) In a small skillet, add pesto sauce, roasted red pepper, and roma tomato. Cook on medium heat and allow to simmer. Stirring occasionally.

3.) In a large skillet, add butter and cubed chicken. Sprinkle chicken with a few pinches of salt and a pinch or so of black pepper. Cook on medium-high heat until cooked thoroughly and lightly browned on each side.

4.) Drain pasta and return to stove. Add cooked pesto sauce mixture and cooked chicken. Mix until pasta and chicken is coated with pesto sauce mixture.

5.) Sprinkle each serving with Parmesan cheese. Enjoy!!

Sorry about the quality of my photo. I was a couple of bites into my meal before I realized I needed to take a picture. Instead of getting up, getting my camera, and then stopping long enough to get a good picture...I decided to make things easier on myself and just take the photo with my phone.

Once again this meal surprised me. I didn't know what to expect with the pesto sauce but it was really good. Even Daniel said it was good. I would also like to mention for those that may have missed it. The dijon marsala pork tenderloin that I made a couple of weeks ago that Daniel said was delicious, must have been. He actually brought it up at our lunch yesterday with his mom and brother. Looks like I'll be adding it to my menu for one day in the next two weeks.