Spring is coming! Lemony Creamy Chickeny Pasta. Y.

M

The delicious Amish noodles, all nice and spinached.

You probably don't know this or, you know, maybe you do - who am I to say what you do or don't know - but I have a soft spot for Amish things. I mean, who doesn't, but I did exist in a world where Amish things weren't exactly an unknown as a smaller version of myself. So it was no wonder when I came across Amish Homestyle Noodles the other day at the store that I leapt at it. Especially since I had just been a little let down by the Chicago French Market.

Sorry, CFM. You were pretty cool, I had fun, but you lied to me. I'll forgive you, but only begrudgingly. And maybe only if you get that freakin' pasta stand in there that I was so excited for. I had some pretty big dreams for that pasta I hadn't seen yet and, well, I didn't let those dreams die. Oh no. I just snapped up those Amish noodles and trekked on home to see what I could do with my dreams and noodles.

As it turned out, I could make a pretty insanely delicious Lemony Chicken Pasta with Cream Sauce.

Seriously, I was really pleased with myself and may or may not have advertised the left overs.
As in, I did not say "oh, there is pasta in the fridge" because I wanted it for lunch the next day.

This was another of my standard "let's see what happens" things where, I mean, clearly I kind of knew what would happen but there was certainly room for error and improvement so I'm only going to give really rough measurements because, honestly, that's how I was doing it.

I plan on making more, though, and then will pay more attention. See, gentle readers, what I do for you?

Oh man I just want to eat this so badly. 

Aaaaaah the deliciousness! 

The Items:
- two chicken breasts (or whatever, it's your chicken), cut into bite sized chunks
- handful of mushrooms, sliced (or quartered, if you like bigger bits)
- cherry tomato, as many as you please! (mine were sliced in half)
- one courgette, sliced
- spinach, rinsed and torn up
- half an onion, chopped
- a lemon, halved
- two-three cloves of garlic, diced nice'n'small
- about half a cup of white wine (I used much of a single-serving bottle)
- 3/4 cup (maybe? I'm really just guessing) heavy cream (or half and half, we just happened to have the cream)
- butter, pepper, salt, basil, etc, olive oil

- pasta. Amish! Or any other kind at all!  I'd wanted a basil pasta for this, I'll be honest.

The Instructions:

Boil the water for the pasta, follow directions. When the pasta is finished, drain and add spinach and stir with a touch of butter. It'll wilt the spinach a bit.

Put a bit of olive oil and butter in a pan and let heat up, then add the onion and garlic, cook for a minute. Add in the chicken and season with pepper, a little salt, and plenty of basil. If you'd like to use another seasoning, then you ought to do so. Squeeze in half of a lemon - watch out for seeds! When the chicken is just cooked through (five minutes, probs), then chuck in the veg (save the tomato) and cook up. Add some of the wine, stir, let cook. Add tomato, the rest of your wine, the cream, and the rest of the lemon (still watching out for seeds).

Check flavors, let reduce, add to pasta. All in all this can be done in I'd say under an hour. It's super easy and super delicious and seriously I love it. I wish I'd had fresh basil or some bell peppers, but did not have those things. I ate mine with some french bread because, damn it, I love me some sauced-up bread. This tastes like spring, I'm not even kidding.