PESTOED

ANOTHER RECIPE! WHAT HAS GOTTEN INTO ME?

I will tell you what has gotten into me: lunches. Deciding what I am going to eat for lunch is more taxing than deciding what I am going to wear to work. Must it be this way? Must life be so hard? I have several friends that teach for a living and I always am so envious when they talk about their cafeteria food, even when they are complaining. I would love a cafeteria where I could go and choose what I wanted every day, free of charge.

Until then, I have tried everything from frozen meals to PBJs to going home for lunch to turkey pitas to skipping it altogether and nothing is as easy OR filling as a leftover. Hence, I am cooking my tail off - not so I can have dinner. So I can have lunch.

So, tonight's recipe is brought to you from my friend Molly. I have no idea where she got it but let me know if you have seen something similar. This dish was so idiot-proof that the hardest part about it was opening the jars of pimentos and artichoke hearts.

Baked Pesto Chicken Pasta

16 oz box of bowtie pasta
2 and a half cups of shredded chicken (I just used 3 breasts)
1 cup pesto (they don't sell it in "cup" increments at the store; 8 oz = 1 cup)
1 can cream of mushroom soup*
4 oz jar of diced pimentos
4 oz jar of artichoke hearts*
1/4 cup of oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
1 cup Parmesan cheese

Cook pasta according to box and drain. Boil and shred chicken. Mix all ingredients but cheese. Spray a large dish with pam. Pour/spread mixture into dish and cover with parmesan cheese. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes.

The asterisks are because I used my handy-dandy food processor to get the mushrooms in that soup ground into smithereens as well as chop up the artichoke hearts a little bit. Just a tip.

DELICIOUS!