Chicken-Asparagus Penne

Got home late and tired yet again. The conversation went something like this:  What's for supper, hon?  I dunno.  Well, there's that asparagus sitting in the window, it's almost ready to be thrown out. What can we do with that?  Well, we can cook up some pasta. Wow that's exciting, asparagus and pasta!  OK ok, well there's this leftover frozen chicken in the freezer, already cooked from that meal last week, we can add that in with some tomato sauce. Hmmm, well that's starting to sound a bit better...

Chicken-Asparagus Penne

So that's what we did. While the penne was boiling, fried up some asparagus with a tiny bit of oil, some lemon juice, and a fresh diced garlic clove. We have this lemon-pepper seasoning (basically lemon + salt + pepper), that went on as well.  Threw in the chicken, some tomato sauce. Voila. Oh yeah, freshly shaved reggiano parmigiano... I think SO liked this much better than I did. Asparagus is not actually my favourite veggie, and tomato sauce is not my fav pasta sauce. We have a recipe we do fairly often I'll detail another time - basically has shrimp, feta, and lots of basil. No sauce, just a tiny bit of oil. Very awesome.

Next Time: Well, I'd use a different tomato sauce or pasta, but SO thought it was good.

Me: 6.5/10
SO: 8.5/10
SSO: n/a

Chicken-Asparagus Penne
Ingredients

• Enough pasta for your family, whatever you have around (penne, spaghetti, etc)
• a bunch of asparagus, washed and the ends broken off (where they break "naturally")
• a clove or two of garlic
• tomato sauce, or pasta sauce, or basically whatever you have around. 
• salt, pepper
• half a lemon's worth of juice
• freshly grated parmesan
• chicken (could also substitute whatever meat is around, could be pork, maybe sausages, even shrimp)

Method

1. Start the water boiling, and get the pasta in there.
2. Meanwhile, brown the meat, add the garlic and spices. Cook the meat enough until it is 5 minutes from being done. I used left-over cooked chicken, so I was just heating it up.
3. Add the asparagus, squirt some lemon over it, and put a lid on for around 5 minutes until it is done but not too done.
4. By now hopefully your pasta is just about finished. Drain, and serve it out.
5. Shave some fresh parmesan on top.
6. Throw in the asparagus