Easy Peasy Chicken and Pasta

I always like something quick and easy to cook for dinner after work. Something that works really well for us is chicken and pasta.

It started because I had planned to have Patrick grill some chicken for us for dinner one night but didn't put the marinade in soon enough so I just threw all the chicken in a pan with the marinade to make sauce. Then I served it over pasta and it was yummy!

This time, I got a bunch of zucchini and yellow squash and onions and sliced them up and sauteed them during the weekend. When we got home, first I started the pasta water then, I cut up two chicken breasts into chunks and thew it in a bowl with the marinade powder. It calls for 1/4 c water and 1/4 c oil but I cut back on the oil a bit.

I got a pan hot and dumped in all the chicken/marinade mixture and cooked it till the chicken was mostly done. Then I added the vegetables I cooked over the weekend and cooked it all together until the chicken was done through and the vegetables were hot. At some point when I was cooking, the pasta water boiled and I put in some whole wheat spaghetti and cooked it.

I put together a quick salad and dinner was on the table in less than 20 minutes. Take that Rachel Ray!

Here is the chicken cooking.
Chicken and pasta cooking
This is the marinade packet that I used. I used the tomato garlic pesto but I didn't take a picture before I tore the packet. The italian herb is really good too. We get this from Patrick's coworker Joe who's mom works for Weber but I know you can also get them at the grocery store.
I'm not going to write down an official recipe because it's mostly just throw it all in a pot and cook it but here is a shopping list.

• 2 chicken breasts (or as much chicken or other meat as you want to use to feed your family and have leftovers)
• 1 marinade packet - we like the ones above but you could use anything you want
• olive oil - for the marinade & sauteing vegetables.
• vegetables - we used yellow squash and zucchini and onions but I think broccoli would be good too.
• pasta - we used whole wheat. You could also serve with rice if you want.