Pasta for Mom

My mom and I have a running joke: she's an amazing cook, but the one thing she just has problems with is properly cooking pasta. So whenever I come home, she asks me to make her a pasta dish. Last time I made shrimp scampi and she was in heaven. She asked me to recreate the dish a couple nights ago using chicken instead. What I made was, in fact, nothing like the original because we had different ingredients on hand, but I'll definitely try to match the shrimp dish again later this summer.

As much as I love my kitchen in Richmond, it's not as snazzy as the one back home, so here are some pictures as much for your viewing pleasure as for mine...

This kitchen is a dream to cook in - my mom designed the whole thing, even the stove was custom made for her because she wanted extra burners.

Here is the chicken pasta recipe which is divine - very creamy and flavorful. I highly recommend you try it :)

1 pound chicken tenders, chopped into small pieces

1/2 onion, chopped small

2 Tbs pesto

salt, fresh cracked pepper, garlic powder, red pepper flakes

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup sour cream

3 Tbs Greek yogurt

3 cups spinach

Heat oil in a pan and fry the onion until it is golden. Add the chicken and cook about halfway - then season with black pepper, salt, and garlic powder. In a bowl, combine the pesto, sour cream, and yogurt, then add this to the chicken. Sprinkle in the Parm and the red pepper flakes. Add more pesto if you think it needs some. Add the spinach and stir so the sauce coats it, then put a lid over the pan to wilt the spinach down some.

Boil 1 1/2 pounds of thin spaghetti and add it to the sauce (reserve some pasta water when draining). Let them cook together for a while and add a couple ladles of pasta water to loosen the sauce so it coats everything nicely.