Penne with Chicken and Pesto
After doing a post a little while back about a recipe I tried from Food on the Table, they contacted me to see if I wanted to take their “Food on the Table Challenge“. I thought why not. They sent me a $100 gift card to buy groceries for 1 week while using their site. I’m starting off with penne with chicken and pesto.
The great think about their site is you pick the store you want to shop at and it helps you plan your meals around the sales at the store. You pick which items from the meat department your family likes. Then it generates a list of recipes from their data base that include those items.
I planned my meals around 3 items that were on sale – pork chops, chicken, and London Broil.
With the free service it gives you 3 recipes to use. I had one recipe from the other week I had their site to use also. So I used 4 recipes that were from their site and then did 3 of my own recipes. You can add your own recipes to the site to help generate your shopping list. You just add the ingredients needed for each recipe so it can generate those items in your shopping list.
Then when you get to the shopping list, it will show you all the items in each recipe that are on sale. You can also remove items from the list if you already have those items on hand. There are even coupon links that you can click on while working on the grocery list. The links will take you to sites to print coupons out and save even more money. When you print your shopping list, there is room to write other non-food items you may need.
One thing I didn’t like was when you actually printed out the list, it didn’t give you the specific amounts needed of each item like 10 chicken breasts etc. Also, when you viewed the list prior to printing it shows you what items are used in which recipes. When you get the actual print out, this information is not included. I liked to know which item was for which recipe.
Next, I went shopping with my list in hand.
One nice thing about the list is it groups the items for you which makes it easier to find what is on your list at the store such as bakery, produce, and meat. I managed to get everything I needed that week for just over $92. This included buying some cereal and cases of green beans that were on sale along with some essentials like milk.
My menu plan included the follow recipe from their site– Penne with Chicken and Pesto, Chicken Fajita Melts, Garlic and Herb London Broil, and Pork Chop and Potato Casserole.
Today, I am sharing the recipe for the Penne with Chicken and Pesto. This was one was my favorite of the four recipes I tried. It was basically a the same as a chicken fettuccine recipe with pesto mixed it. I loved the addition of the pesto to the creamy white sauce. This was quick and easy to make. It was ready in about 30 minutes. Add and slice of bread with a vegetable or salad and you’re good for dinner. This was enough to feed my family of 5 with another serving left over.
I will be sharing the other recipes I tried over the next few days. All in all, the site was very useful in putting a together a grocery list for you and helping plan your meals around sales. They even have an iPhone app to put the list onto your iPhone.
Penne with Chicken and Pesto
Real Mom Kitchen
Ingredients
- 1 16.0 ounce package penne pasta
- 2 Tablespoon butter
- 2 Tablespoon olive oil
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts I only used 3
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 ¼ cup heavy cream
- ¼ cup pesto
- 3 Tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain.
- Heat butter and olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute chicken and garlic until chicken is almost cooked through.
- Reduce heat and stir in salt, pepper, cream, pesto and Parmesan cheese. Cook until chicken is no longer pink inside. Stir in cooked pasta. Serves 6.
