The cold, snowy, Michigan winter (it has been in the low 20's for most of January!) is making me crave comfort food lately. This weekend I was having family over for my daughter's 3rd birthday celebration so I wanted to make a quick, one pot meal that everyone (including the uber picky 3 year old) would enjoy. And I didn't want to spend all day in the kitchen while everyone was enjoying the party. I started with this casserole recipe and modified it based on what I had in my pantry and fridge. I added a package of grilled, cooked chicken (from Trader Joe's) - you can certainly cook the chicken yourself or use a rotisserie chicken. I omitted the anise seeds because I didn't have them in the house and I hate licorice. I used fresh baby spinach in lieu of frozen. Finally, I skipped the baking part. The recipe called for baking the casserole in the oven for about 20-30 minutes to heat throught, but I just added hot pasta to the sauce, stirred and let it sit for a few minutes so the noodles absorbed some of the sauce. The end result? Delicious! I'm definietly adding this recipe to my rotation. Plus my 3 year old loved it so I didn't have to make a separate meal for her - a huge bonus! She loves pasta and spinach but hates chicken so omitted the chicken from her plate.
8 oz pasta (penne or bow tie)
2 medium onions, cut into thin wedges, or 5 medium leeks, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 3/4 cups milk (I used fat free - whole milk or half & half will make the sauce creamier)
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup greated Parmesan cheese
2-3 cups fresh baby spinach (or 10 oz package of frozen, chopped spinach, thawed and well drained)
2 oz prosciutto (cut into thin bite size strips) -- may omit
2 chicken breasts, cooked, cut into bite sized pieces (or whatever leftover rotisserie chicken you have on hand)
1/2 cup grape tomatoes, cut in half (or 1 medium tomato, seeded and chopped)
- Cook pasta according to package directions, drain but do not rinse. You may want to save about 1/2 cup of pasta water to water down the sauce at the end if needed.
- In a large saucepan or pot, cook onion and garlic in the olive oil about 5 minutes or until onion is tender, stirring occasionally. You don't want to brown or carmelize it
- Stir in flour and cook for a couple of minutes to cook out the raw flour taste
- Add milk and chicken broth all at once. Cook while stirring until slightly thickened and bubbly
- Add the cooked chicken and spinach and cook at low heat until chicken is heated through and the spinach has wilted (if using frozen spinach, add it together with the pasta)
- Stir in the parmesan cheese
- Add the cooked pasta and prosciutto and stir until pasta is covered in the sauce. Let stand, covered for about 5 minutes until some of the sauce is absorbed by the pasta. Add some pasta water to loosen the sauce if too much gets absorbed by the pasta (if desired)
- Garnish each plate with the chopped tomatoes
- Serve with crusty bread
Makes about 6 - 8 servings.
** I forgot to take a picture of the final dish but it looked just like the picture in the linked recipe above **
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