I'm a big fan of pasta, but I don't ever really make a lot of pasta dishes that don't come out of the freezer or start with a mix, so I decided to try making a dish from scratch just using stuff that we already had in the house (using what's available - how's that for ingenuity Iron Chef America?).
I knew I wanted to use chicken, so I sauteed some strips of chicken breast in some olive oil while I figured out what else I wanted to add to my dish. I can't make my own pasta (yet), but we had some penne noodles, so I decided to use those (it was either that or spaghetti). My family really likes pasta with alfredo sauce, so I tried making my own. I just cooked some minced garlic in butter, then added cream, parmesean cheese, and a little parsley. Not exactly a traditional alfredo, but a white sauce with enough flavor to fool people into thinking it might be. :)
I didn't want just chicken and sauce though, so I looked in the freezer and found some frozen spinach, which I love, and I added some of that to the sauce once it had started bubbling. I added the pasta to the sauce without cooking it first, which was a bit of a mistake. The pasta did cook through, but it took a while, and I think it would have gone faster if I had pre-cooked the pasta for a few minutes before adding everything all together.
I also sauteed some mushrooms to go on top of the pasta - I would have just added them in, but not everyone likes them, so I kept them separate. It turned out really well - I liked it, and I'm pretty sure everybody else did to (there weren't any leftovers, a good sign right?), so I'm calling it a success. After this, I think I'd really like to try making a homemade red (tomato) sauce to go with some pasta. An adventure for another day? I think so. Stay tuned!
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