Sunday, June 19, 2011

Garlic Scape Pesto Chicken Pasta


Yeah, the title of this one is just a bunch of food words strung together.  I could have used the word tomato too, but I thought that would be pushing it.

I made a ton of garlic scape pesto a few days ago.  I mixed it with red wine vinegar and a bit of oil and called it salad dressing for lunch, and then heated it up with my pasta and chicken and called it sauce for dinner.  


This is simple.   Start with some pasta.  I got some penne going, but I don't quarantine my pastas so there's definitely a piece of two of rigatoni in this.  S'okay.  Have that boiling and cut up some chicken breast.  Two breasts for four meals - that's how our math works.  I cut them into big bite-sized cubes, and put a dab of olive oil down in a pan.   Then the chicken. 


I left it in there on medium, stirring as rarely as I could handle, to make sure we got some browning, for about ten minutes.   In the middle there, between stirs, I put a lid on it to help make sure the chicken cooked through.  There have been too many incidents.

Once I was confident in the chicken, I put a few tablespoons of the scape pesto into the pan, as well as a diced tomato.   Chances are, most of the year, you won't have scape pesto on hand, but you could do this with basil pesto too.


I added in a drizzle of olive oil - I had made the pesto fairly thick, using less oil than usual, so that it'd be a malleable substance I could use as spread, dip, sauce or dressing.  Use as much oil as you need to make the texture right. Stir it together a bit.


Then toss in the pasta.  My pasta was slightly more al dente (less cooked) than usual, because I planned to give it a few minutes in the pan with the sauce.

Yeah, there's the rigatoni.
I let that hang with the sauce on medium low, stirring frequently for about three good minutes.  That was it, dinner.


We had some great strawberries (they were great at the moment, but right on their way out) from the CSA, so we tossed those in with some greens and balasmic vinegar and parmesan for a side salad.

I feel like straight balsamic vinegar works alone as a great dressing as long as there's some other good flavor going on there - fruit, blue cheese, etc.  It's my #1 bring-to-work salad dressing.

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Garlic Scape Pesto Chicken Pasta
Garlic scape pesto spread turned into an easy pasta sauce with fresh tomato and chicken
Ingredients
  • 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
  • 3 tablespoons garlic scape pesto spread
  • 2 cups cooked penne
  • 1 small diced tomato
  • to taste olive oil
Instructions
Cube chicken and cook until starting to brown.Add pesto and diced tomato to pan, stir. Add olive oil as needed until smooth enough to coat chicken. Add cooked pasta and cook medium low, stirring frequently for a few minutes until well integrated.
Details
Prep time: Cook time: Total time: Yield: 4 servings

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