So, I don’t cook much nor do I cook well from all the disastrous times (emphasis on the plural part) I tried making my mum food on mother’s day as a kid up until I was a pre-teen. I then started to realize that I wasn’t very good at it. I can cook to survive on easy meals like scrambled eggs and reheating food already made for me. LOL. Most of the cooked meals you see on this site and my Instagram are mostly made by David (the boyfriend).

Unfortunately, there has been a recent change when David got a new job that worked later into the night which meant I was left with dinner duties. This was HUGE. Him letting me into the kitchen equates to me possibly burning the house down or cutting off my fingers (the latter more probable at 95% risk). Not to mention I was terrified that I my dishes were going to turn out horrendous and we were going to end up eating burnt shit at the end of the night.

There weren’t many options so I decided to give it a go and I wanted to start documenting my successes and failures as I navigated my way through the kitchen. My first dish was supposed to be Chicken Pesto Penne, but being me I completely forgot to buy pesto at the market. Luckily I had pureed tomato sauce that I was going to use for myself and on a whim decided to use that as a back up.

Needed ingredients:
1 Box of Penne Pasta
1 Tablespoon of Olive Oil
2 Chicken Breasts, sliced ½ inch or small cubes
3 Cloves of Garlic, minced
½ Tablespoon of Salt
½ Fresh Ground Black Pepper
¾ Cup of Heavy Cream
½ Grated Parmesan (I purchased pre-grated ones)
¼-½ Cup of Organic Prego Tomato Basil Garlic Sauce
¾ Cups of Cherry Tomatos, halved
Grated Parmesan to garnish
A Dash of Chili Flakes

To be honest I didn’t really know what I was doing since the recipe I originally looked up didn’t give detailed instructions, they were very vague so I was groping in the dark with this. For the pasta I filled the pot probably 80% full then set the fire to high and let it sit until it boiled. I learned that 10 minutes was the perfect time for the noodles to turn al dente enough to go another round of cooking when I later tossed them in the pan to be mixed with the sauce.

I heated the olive oil over high heat and tossed in the chicken, diced garlic, salt and pepper until the chicken was golden brown (also at minimum 165 degrees). After I added in the tomato sauce and heavy cream stirring until it was even on all the chicken pieces then I let it the suace reduce itself. The very last items were the cherry tomatoes, cooked them until they were a little runny then placed in the pasta in and stirred.

I drizzled Parmesan which will melt on its own with the natural heat from the sauce and noodles then put in some chili flakes on top as I knew David loved this food spicy.

Verdict? (I promise I told him to be honest if it was nasty) Thankfully (my gawd damn lucky stars) he thought it was delicious and that I did an awesome job for my first time (did I mention I squealed… Yes, I was that thrilled). The noodles came out perfect and the sauce was very tasty. So I have to say I was quite proud of myself for having to cooked something that wasn’t eggs! 🙂

I hope you enjoy making this recipe as much I did!