Pasta. Good.
Cheese. Gooooood.
Spinach? Good for you. (Also growing on me and maybe will someday qualify for 'good' status.)
Recipe: (from Pinterest via Bitchin Camero)
1 pound pasta (I used Barilla Plus Penne)
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 1 pounds), diced
1/4 cup olive oil
8 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp. salt
5 cups fresh spinach, chopped
1/4 cup white wine
2 cups mozzarella cheese
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Set a large pot of salted water to boil. Once it comes to a rolling boil, cook pasta until just al dente (about a minute or 2 less than package directions). Drain.
While the pasta is cooking, set a large skillet over medium heat. Heat the olive oil and add chicken. Brown the chicken on all sides, about 10 minutes.
Add the garlic and simmer with chicken until fragrant, about 3 minutes.
Add the salt, spinach, and white wine to the chicken and cook for an additional 3-5 minutes, until spinach is wilted.
Toss the pasta with the chicken and spinach mixture. Add to baking dish.
Cover with cheese and bake for 25 minutes.
Verdict:
It has potential. Maybe.
Maybe I had it built up too much in my mind, but this just did not live up to expectations. Essentially, it was lacking a cohesive ingredient to flavor the noodles and 'hold' them together. There is no sauce. And all the cheese is on top. So while the top of the dish looked all gooey and golden brown and delicious, the middle of the dish was..... Noodles. Unflavored noodles.
I suppose this could be fixed by adding a sauce. Alfredo would be delicious but unhealthy. Tomato would be healthier and probably also good. It might also help to stir some of the cheese in rather than just have it on top. Or maybe mix some cottage cheese into the chicken-spinach-pasta mixture...
On the other hand, there are so many other delicious baked pasta recipes and chicken-with-pasta recipes and chicken-with-spinach recipes and chicken-with-pasta-and-vegetables recipes that I'll probably table this one for...... as long as it takes me to stop finding new recipes to try?
Oh wait. That could be never...
On to the next (and hopefully more successful) experiment!
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