Chicken and Artichoke Pasta

Sorry I’ve been so slow to update recently. If I tried to explain everything that’s been going on around here, I’d run out of space for a recipe. Put it this way: the emergency medical trip to Minnesota (of all places) isn’t even the most surreal thing that’s happened in the last month.

Anyway, my nightly cooking has reflected this uncontained chaos, and the truth is I haven’t been cooking much at all, let alone trying to experiment with new recipes. On the other hand, I was forced to be a little more creative most nights given my lack of time, and did actually manage to throw together something that turned out unexpectedly great.

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First, start grilling two chicken breasts in a pan with a little olive oil. Make sure you are looking at something more important when you season them, so you waste a bunch of salt and pepper in the pan like I did. Don’t be nervous about seasoning without measurements, it’s only salt and pepper. Just make it look like the picture does.

Resist the urge to turn them too early; you want the cooked part to be crawling more than halfway up the sides, and the underside to be good and browned before you flip them over.

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Meanwhile, start boiling about 4-8 ounces of gluten-free pasta. Given the color I’d say mine was at least partially corn-based, but the truth is I have no idea what brand this was.

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After it’s cooked and drained, drizzle 2 Tablespoons of olive oil in and stir well. I’d blame the steam for the blurry photo, but really it was just my unsteady hands.

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Now then: lazy secret ingredient number one. This is a random jar I found near the spaghetti sauces in my grocery store. It’s basically chopped up artichokes, garlic, oil, and salt. I think it’s supposed to get dolloped onto little toasty rounds of bruschetta at a fancy dinner party or something. But instead, I scooped about 1/2 cup of it directly into my pasta. I bet your store has something similar. Of course you should always be extra careful to check the label on any unfamiliar foods you buy.

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And lazy secret ingredient number two, a pre-made pico de gallo, which you may remember seeing before. I’m nothing if not consistent. Adding in the mango bits is a local thing, but if you’re too far north of the border to get anything remotely like this, you could always make your own. It’s literally just one red onion, one tomato, one small jalapeno, (one mango,) and a little cilantro, diced finely. I think I probably dumped in about a cup. I was not measuring this evening, believe me.

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Around this time your chicken breasts should be close to being done.

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Cut them into slices, lay them neatly across your bowls of pasta, and you might even get away with looking like you put some effort into this.

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Happy Eating!

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The GFCF Lady’s Artichoke Pasta

2 chicken breasts
salt and pepper
4 ounces gluten-free pasta
2 TBS olive oil
1/2 cup diced artichoke mix
1 cup pico de gallo