Busy in the Kitchen

I've been busy the past two days in the kitchen and added two more recipes to my non-book recipe list. Monday I mixed up a batch of No Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal cookies. I've never made cookies before, although these push the limits of the definition of cookie - there's no flour in them. They're mainly dollops of the ingredients mixed together and hardened. I could technically call them my "dessert from scratch" since I only used base ingredients, but honestly, I feel like I'd be cheating myself with how easy it was. I'm not going to mark it off until I have made real cookies, brownies, or a cake or pie. Or, I guess, some other kind of dessert. But those are the most likely ones. People at work like the cookies though, so at least they're successful.

I had a dream on Monday morning about a dish with chicken and spinach in a white cream sauce, and it looked so good in my head, I decided I was going to find a recipe to make it for Tuesday's dinner. What I came up with was tasty! Cat found me a recipe on Grouprecipes.com, but it pretty much just told me what I was considering was doable. I didn't use it to make the dish.

2 jars of alfredo sauce (I used Newman's Own Garlic Alfredo)
2 to 3 chicken breasts
1 package frozen spinach (get chopped, not leaf)
Spices to season chicken (I chose McCormick's Spiced Sea Salt mix, pepper, and paprika)
Pasta of choice (penne, but I imagine bowtie works well too. A smaller pasta works better with the spinach than long ones like spaghetti or fettucini)

1. Cut the chicken into cubes or strips as you like. Season and cook.
2. Cook the pasta to desired doneness. Follow the directions to cook the spinach.
3. Once all three components are done, mix together with alfredo sauce in a large pot. Make sure the sauce gets heated a little (although the warm pasta, chicken and spinach should do most of it)
4. Serve and enjoy! You can try mixing in more veggies, shredded parmesan cheese, or additional spices if you like. I loved the extra kick the garlic gave the alfredo sauce.

I will warn you, this leaves a TON of leftovers for a family of two. It's definitely a good recipe for guests. I'm going to make a few changes to the recipe (maybe try and make my own alfredo sauce sometime...and learn from my mistake with the frozen leaf spinach...it clumps too much to work well with the recipe. Chopped or fresh is probably better) but it's definitely going on our regular meal list.