Artichoke Lemon Pesto Chicken Pasta

Hello!!

Can I tell you about my night the other night? Guess you don’t really have a choice because I’m going to. If you live in Colorado then you know that two nights ago it was a downpour. I’m not talking the usual raining for five minutes and that being enough to cause all the drivers to panic and drive like they just got their licenses. No, I’m talking buckets and buckets causing it to look a little white outside from all the water coming down.

So I’m in my room, crafting away (you may know that I have a tendency to do that), and I periodically would look out my window because I love the rain so much! I always want to really seize the moment when it rains that hard in Colorado because it rarely does, but I can never actually think of anything that would be so riveting and satisfying to go do by myself in the rain. So I settled with just looking out my window at it.

Well, hours go by and no one else was home so I kind of got in the zone. I reached a point where I needed some wire cutters, and I tried to post pone having to go “all the way downstairs,” but I could delay no longer. So I head for the downstairs. At about the 2nd step down I hear the worst noise ever. It’s not a bad noise on it’s own, but in the context of the situation I knew that I was about to want to start crying. It was the lovely sound of a fountain. Well we don’t have a fountain. From past experiences, I immediately knew that water was pouring down from a light in our kitchen. And it sure had been for the last few hours. Which was evident by the two inches of water all over the counters and the floors, and everything (including the tv in there) was completely soaked. So naturally, I stayed calm…………by sprinting to grab towels, no my phone, I have to call someone, no get a bowl on the counter, no call someone first, no get towels. So as I proceeded to run back in forth through my house, I grabbed a pasta bowl and called my neighbor to come help me! He’s Mr. Fix-It so it was either him or 911, and I had the sense to know that 911 would have said, “yeah, and what do you want us to do?” So he comes over and finds that our gutters are completely full. So there isn’t actually any water going out the spout…because it’s traveling upward through the shingles into our lovely kitchen. How wonderful. Well long story short, I spent the next hour cleaning everything up in the kitchen and a mini lake upstairs because someone left a window open. How convenient for everyone to be gone that day. This might be one of the days where my family got lemonade and I got lemons 🙂

Speaking of lemons, today’s recipe is one of Tom and I’s all time favorites! Its Artichoke Lemon Pesto Chicken Pasta, and it’s from PaleOMG. I featured another one of her recipes in the past on my Steak & Eggs post, and I know you will love this one too. It’s healthy and delicious! There aren’t even any processed carbs.

What You Need:

• 1lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 large spaghetti squash, cut in half lengthwise
• 12-15 artichoke hearts, cut in half (jarred)
• ⅓ cup walnuts
• 4-5 tablespoons olive oil
• 4-5 tablespoons vegetable broth
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• ½ cup fresh parsley
• ½ cup fresh basil
• juice of 1 lemon
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 3-5 cups of spinach

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 405 degrees. Cut the spaghetti squash in half, and after scrapping out the seeds, bake on a cookie sheet for 35-40 min. You will know that it’s done if you push a fork in the skin and it goes through with ease.

2. On medium heat add a little olive oil (or butter) and add a minced garlic clove. After about a minute add the artichoke hearts and some salt and pepper. Leave these on burner til they are browned. Admittedly this wasn’t the most attractive meal to photograph, but it tastes amazing so give it a chance!

3. Once the artichokes become browned, add them to a food processor (or blender if you don’t have a food processor) along with the walnuts, olive oil, vegetable broth, and second garlic clove. Puree til it has a smooth consistency. Let sit in food processor/blender til you start the chicken. I’m pretty sure our blender is on it’s last leg. It’s from decades ago. But it wasn’t quite the disaster that we faced making chocolate mousse at Tom’s house. That’s a story for another day.

4. Cube the chicken, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook on medium high in the same pan you cooked the artichokes. Cook til chicken becomes browned on all sides.

5. While chicken is browning, add parsley, basil, lemon juice, salt and pepper to food processor/blender. Puree til it has a smooth consistency. Parsley and basil are rough estimates but you don’t have to pack them down.

It’s not as green as you’d think, it will look something like this:

6. Once your chicken is done, add spinach and 1/4 a cup of pesto to chicken pan. Mix well, cover, and let cook til spinach is wilted. Then remove from heat. That red and black bowl is actually the bowl I grabbed to catch water when my kitchen was leaking. I washed it before I used it for food of course.

7. Once spaghetti squash is done, scrape out the “strings/threads” of spaghetti with a fork and add to the chicken and spinach mix. Pour the rest of the pesto sauce from the food processor/blender into the bowl and mix well.

8. Serve and fall in love!!