Lemony Chicken Pasta

Lemony Chicken Pasta

I can't believe that I am actually publishing my very first recipe on this blog! This is something that I have always wanted to do, but honestly I have never felt like my food is that great or whatever. But, I figured that I do have a talent to share, and I might as well go out on a limb and try this whole food blogger dealio.

So today I was craving pasta (shocker.. seems like that is all i'm craving at this stage of the pregnancy... haha) but I also wanted to use up some of the million lemons that Hope brought over last week. So I came up with this easy One Pan Lemon Pasta. 

The first thing I like to do when starting a recipe is to get out all of my ingredients. For this recipe you will need:

• 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1 inch chunks and seasoned 
• 1 teaspoon of kosher salt plus lots of freshly ground black pepper
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 cup of zucchini sliced in quarters
• 1/2 a yellow onion, diced small
• 2 cups (16 oz) of canned crushed tomatoes Italian Style
• (Optional: Regular Canned Tomatoes and 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp oregano, 1 tsp basil, and 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes)
• 1 cup of water
• 1/2 pound of penne pasta (about two cups)
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced; juiced lemon should yield about 1/4 cup of lemon juice
• 1 lemon sliced for garnish
• 1 cup of parmesan cheese

Start out by heating up your olive oil. Once the oil is hot, add your cubes of chicken and brown on all sides. 

So I didn't have traditional canned tomatoes, so I decided to use some of my canned tomatoes that I canned myself a few months ago. And since my tomatoes weren't seasoned or crushed when I canned them I just did that myself. Super easy.

If this is how you plan on doing your tomatoes just puree them and then add 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp oregano, 1 tsp basil, and 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Once the chicken is all browned add your minced garlic, zucchini and onion and let them get soft.

Once your onions are translucent and the zucchini is soft add the cup of water and the 2 cups of pureed tomatoes and the uncooked pasta. Turn the heat up to High and bring everything to a boil. Let everything boil until the pasta is tender.

While my pasta was cooking I zested one lemon and juiced it. And also sliced up an extra lemon I had for garnish. 

Once the pasta was tender, I added the lemon juice and lemon zest and lemon slices and sprinkled the whole thing with some tasty cheese! 

I am so proud of how this turned out! Best thing about it in my mind is that it was all cooked in one pan! No need to drain the pasta even and dirty a colander. Also I love how the lemon in this brightens up the flavors and makes everything zing -- in a great way! 

I hope you give this easy recipe a try! And there is so many things you could do to mix this up and make it work with what you have in your pantry at the time. You could substitute the chicken with hamburger or sausage. You could leave out the tomatoes and just do chicken stock. and you could change up the veggies in this dish. Zucchini, carrots, broccoli, yellow squash, olives! Anything!

Enjoy!