Day 29: Buffalo Chicken Pasta

What a gorgeous day today! We spent the latter part of this morning hiking through Yale forest with the kids. It was our first time using the Kelty kid carrier (so generously passed along to us) with Henri! By the time we started out back to the car, Henri was snoring in my ear. He’s such an easy-going little fella’ that we didn’t actually expect any issues. Isaac spent our hike checking out animal prints and trying to decipher them with his mommy and daddy.

We don’t often get “family time”, and today was a lot of fun! It made me feel a little guilty for all of the time Justin and I spend away from the kids, or at least not using the time as quality time. When we came home (and after family nap time) I decided to cook up one of Justin’s favorite meals. I’m just that awesome of a wife. Of course, his favorite meal usually contained gluten… and uses a jarred alfredo sauce… so I thought this the perfect opportunity to fulfill my “no processed products” rules. I would venture to make some alfredo sauce from scratch… then turn it in to buffalo chicken pasta.

This is an EXTREMELY easy meal. Of course, it is by far not the healthiest I’ve made, but I did try to use some “lower fat” options in my creams and cheeses. We'll call it our after-hike carb-loading. The meal would have been a whole lot easier if my sea salt cracker hadn’t completely broken open during my final seasoning of the alfredo sauce… I had to start all over from scratch, and was thankful we had an extra cream cheese. Something about the inch of sea salt in the bottom of the sauce pan didn’t seem too appealing.

So here is today’s recipe in its entirety. It was scarfed down by both Justin and Isaac. I have to be quick with this meal to put a little extra to the side for the next day’s lunch for me. Otherwise, the boys would have eaten that too!

Buffalo Chicken Pasta

GF, CoF, SF, NF

Ingredients:

1lb of chicken tenders, cut into small pieces

1, 8oz package of Neufchatel cheese (less fat the cream cheese)

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter

½ cup grated parmesan

1cup light cream

1 cup of 1% or skim milk

1 Tbs minced garlic

1 tsp garlic powder (I added this later, because it need a little more)

¼ tsp each Sea Salt and pepper

2-3 TBS Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo Wing Sauce (website lists as GF) Amount depends on how much heat you want.

12oz package of GF pasta

Instructions:

Chop chicken into small bite-sized pieces and cook in pan with olive oil.

Melt butter in a sauce pan

Add in cream, milk, Neufchatel cheese, parmesan and garlic. Bring to a boil.

Add in chopped (or broken) mushrooms.

Cook until thickened. This does not take long, and it will thicken more once added to the pasta

Season the alfredo with desired amount of salt and pepper

Meanwhile, prepare pasta according to package instructions. Once cooked, add in cooked chicken. And combine. Then, stir in the alfredo/mushroom mixture.

Stir in desired amount of Frank’s Red Hot buffalo sauce.

Let me know your thoughts! This is a family favorite and very easy way to get Isaac to eat chicken!

Sleeping Henri (with his hat falling down)

Me with the boys (of course, Henri's hard to see)

Daddy and Isaac

Naturally,

Raych