Dinner blog!

I got this recipe from my sweet friend, Carina! At one of my wedding showers, everyone submitted a recipe they wanted to pass on, and this one was from her. We really like it.

Chicken Farfalle in Light Tomato Pesto Cream

1 lb farfalle (We did not use that much though or we'd have leftovers for a week. I think I halved that. And we used whole wheat.)

2 T EVOO

2.8 oz pesto

2 cloves minced garlic

1/4 cup sour cream (fat free)

1 29 oz can crushed Italian tomatoes

Pine nuts

2 T half and half

Parmesan cheese

Chicken, if desired

We do add chicken, so I cooked some chicken tenders in a teensy bit of olive oil (EVOO) and seasoned with rosemary, thyme, italian seasoning, and garlic powder. I cut the chicken up into little chunks. Then set aside.

Cook farfalle. Drain and set aside.

Heat EVOO in a large skillet. Saute the garlic, then set aside.

Add tomatoes and simmer over medium heat (covered) until the liquid is reduced. This will take about 10 minutes. Add the cooked chicken and remove from heat. Leave covered to keep warm. (At this point, I also threw in some extra herbs and what not for added flavor. Be creative.)

In a small saucepan, blend the pesto, half and half (which we did not have, so we just used milk), and sour cream. Heat on low until warmed through.

Toss the pesto sauce with the pasta.

Then add the pesto pasta to the large tomato sauce-chicken-skillet.

Toss.

Top with cheese and pine nuts! We ran out of pine nuts, and Harris Teeter was flat sold out. Was everyone making Chicken Farfalle this weekend? So we went without the pine nuts this time. They do add an excellent touch, but it was still amaze without.

Enjoy!

We also ate this with a side salad of green leaf lettuce, cucumber, tomato, shredded parm, and Basil and Romano Italian dressing.

It was delish. Oh, and here's the whole meal plated up.

On a side note, one of our shelves on the our fridge door fell off just before I started dinner. It housed about 4 bottles of wine, a bottle of beer, and 3 Seagrams or Smirnoffs. No we are not alchies. And yes, I may have screamed. We lost a little wine. And a Seagrams lid popped off. Bummer. So I conned Casey into drinking the Seagrams "Jamaican Me Happy" (watermelon, strawberry, guave...sounds amazing to me!) with dinner. So we didn't have to be wasty-pants and throw it away. It's not very manly or very Italian, but he did it for me cause he's the best. And who are we kidding? He makes everything manly. He said he'd planned on have a beer, but he'd sacrifice for me.

Here's what he drank:

Here's what he'd planned on drinking:

Dinner was still good, and I'm sure the Seagrams was secretly his favorite part.