Not least of all is that earlier in the year we had virtually a whole month of visitors, one lot after the other, plus a couple of hasty visits back to the UK for various crisis management issues. The thing about visitors that I find most difficult is the catering. Thinking of, shopping for and providing three meals a day at normal times, including impromptu meals out, requires brain effort that no longer comes easily and our usual eating pattern is generally much more ad hoc. Hence there tends to be over purchasing, a freezer crammed with unused items and a scramble to use up perishables when the visitors have all gone home.
So, this dish is a result of realising it's lunchtime, looking in the fridge to see what there is and coming up with something edible. It was surprisingly good and I would even do it again on purpose rather than by accident.
One of the ingredients was some home roasted tomatoes. As always home grown veg are ready all at once and earlier in the year we lost most of our broad beans simply because we were so busy that we didn't get round to picking them. When my tomatoes began to ripen I was determined not to waste those so found the time to roast and bottle them. You can see how I did it here.
I confess that the idea for this pasta actually came from a ready meal we had not long ago. I spotted a couple of packs of something called creamy salmon pasta in the "anti gaspi" or yellow sticker section in the nearby branch of Aldi. They were remarkably good and I thought I would make something similar when we needed a light meal and I had spinach in the house, although obviously I used chicken, not salmon.
Ingredients
About 3/4 of a pint of pasta. I used penne and usually measure pasta using my old Pyrex one pint jug. I find that a full jug or about a pint is a generous serving for two people.
2-3 slices of cooked chicken, torn into small pieces. I happened to use smoked chicken because we had the remains of a ready cooked smoked chicken in the fridge.
2 tblsp crème fraiche
About 1/3 of a bag of fresh spinach, washed
6-8 roasted tomatoes in olive oil (or you could use sundried tomatoes or cherry tomatoes)
Method
Cook the pasta in a large pan of boiling water according to the packet instructions. When cooked to your liking (either soft or al dente) drain off most of the water and put the spinach in a single layer on top. Put the lid on and return to the heat for a couple of minutes until the spinach is wilted.
Remove from the heat, stir in the chicken, crème fraiche and tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately, sprinkled with grated parmesan cheese if you like.
Serves 2.
