Chicken Alfredo Primavera
Always a pleasurable meal, full of color with a delicious sauce! So easy to make and never any leftovers!
Recipe: Prep: 40 minutes Serves 8
2 - cooked organic boneless/skinless chicken breasts - cut into 1/2 inch pieces
3 cups organic heavy cream
3/4 cup organic butter
2 cups parmesan cheese - freshly grated
16 oz. organic frozen peas
1 medium organic onion - diced
black pepper
17.6 oz organic tri-color Farfalle pasta
Heat water up in a large pot for the pasta.
Heat peas up in a skillet.
In a large deep stainless steel skillet, add the butter and heavy
cream and cook on medium, whisking together as they heat up.
Once thoroughly heated, add the parmesan cheese in 1/2 cup
increments, whisking until all is completely melted and blended.
Turn off heat.
Note: Do not overheat or the cheese will not melt correctly
and will give a gummy result.
Grind the black pepper over sauce and then whisk in.
Note: I didn't give a measurement for this as I just grind some
over the top, just estimating what we would like. Freshly
ground black pepper really goes well in this sauce.
Proceed to cook pasta to "al dente" stage.
Add the onion and chicken to the sauce.
When peas are done, then add them.
When pasta is done and drained, then add to the sauce and
stir through well. Ready to serve. Enjoy!
Tips: "al dente" means that it is mostly cooked with a small core of
the center that is uncooked.
Pasta will continue to cook even after it is removed from the hot water,
unless cooled down. (which by the way, so do potatoes, so keep this in
mind when making potato salad - do not over cook the potatoes - just
soft enough to get a fork through)
So, if you are wanting to make a cold pasta salad, then you will need
to have some ice water ready to pour over it as it sits in a colander.
The ice cubes will continue to melt and pass through the pasta, so just
stir it a couple of times, until the pasta feels cool.
Just scoop whatever is left of the ice cubes out.
If you want to make pasta ahead of time then this is what you would
need to do and then after draining it you would drizzle oil over it and
stir through and then refrigerate.
Then if you want a hot paste meal, have some hot water ready and just
add the pasta for about a minute to heat through and Voila' - it is ready.
This is one of those meals where you can either grill the chicken for some
extra flavor or precook chicken in crock pot and divide up for meals like
this and freeze the rest.
Sometimes, if I choose to use the cream off the top of the raw milk we
buy, rather than use heavy cream from the store, the sauce is not as thick
as it should be, but this can be easily fixed by letting the dish sit for
about 20 minutes with lid on. This will enable it to thicken up as the
pasta will start to absorb some of it.
Which by the way, pasta will absorb liquids and sauces. So if you are
making a cold pasta salad a head of time, then don't add the sauce
until you are ready to serve.