Chicken and Asparagus Pasta Bake

This recipe came about because of another recipe I had concocted many years ago. I was at the grocery store last night and had decided to pick up the ingredients for that recipe when I got the idea to do something a little bit different, which I have since discovered is equally delicious. They're not exactly the same thing, but the ideas are exactly the same. One of the things that I've said over and over is that recipes are merely guidelines, nothing is written in stone, and you can make a dish into anything you want it to be! When I next make the recipe which was the base for this, I will post it and let you compare it. But, really, there is not much difference between what that is and what this is...
This idea came about because I was in the soup isle at the grocery store, and I happened to pass the cream of asparagus soup before I got to the one I had been initially looking for. Knowing that I had some fresh asparagus in the refrigerator at home, my mind immediately switched gears and came up with this variation. Since I also had chicken breasts in my freezer, that sounded like a great choice to go with the asparagus and pasta. So, throw a few things together, and... Voila!


Printable Recipe

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb. cavatappi pasta
1 - 2 bunches fresh asparagus asparagus
3 (10.75 oz.) cans Cream of Asparagus soup
2 c. chicken broth
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 c. freshly shredded Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Fill a large stockpot with water and bring it to a boil; add the pasta and cook for approximately 8 minutes. (If you decide to use a different pasta, simply cook it for one minute less than the instructions call for for al dente pasta.)
Place the chicken breasts in a medium sauce pot and cover with water. Bring them to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer, cooking the chicken until it's no longer pink on the inside. When the chicken is cooked through, remove it from the water and cut into cubes; place in a large mixing bowl.
Meanwhile, melt the butter in a small saucepan and then combine the olive oil into it; add the onion and sauté until transparent. During the last minute of cooking, add the garlic to the pan and sauté with the onion until the raw bite of the garlic has been cooked off. Add this mixture to the bowl with the chicken.
Clean and trim the asparagus, cutting it into 1-inch pieces. Add the asparagus pieces to the mixing bowl.
Empty the contents of the three cans of soup into a small mixing bowl and combine it with the chicken stock until the soup is thinned out and the mixture is fairly smooth. Add this to the bowl with the chicken, onion and garlic mixture, and asparagus. Stir the mixture to combine everything and salt and pepper to taste; fold in the cooked pasta. Pour the entire mixture into a greased 9x13-inch baking pan, cover with foil, and bake in a preheated oven for 30 - 35 minutes. Uncover the mixture, sprinkle with cheese, and bake for another 8 - 10 minutes, until the cheese is melted and bubbly.

Fresh Basil Pesto

If you know me at all, you know that I LOVE basil. And is it really so hard to understand why?! Basil is so fresh-tasting and delicious that almost anything you add it to automatically tastes fresher and better! If you need convincing of this, get yourself some fresh basil and try this: take approximately 10 basil leaves and roll and slice them thinly, then sprinkle it over the top of a plain frozen cheese pizza. It won't taste like any other frozen pizza you've ever had, that's for sure!
Even though I like using the basil leaves fresh off the plant by themselves, one of my favorite things to do with fresh basil is to make pesto. The best thing about this is that it preserves well, so you can keep it for a year and enjoy the same fresh herb taste in the middle of winter that you could in the middle of summer! After you have prepared the fresh pesto, all you have to do is fill the compartments of an ice cube tray with the mixture and freeze it until it's solid. When the pesto is frozen, just pop it out of the ice cube trays and place the frozen blocks into a freezer-safe zip top bag to keep in the freezer for whenever you need or want them. You could wrap the frozen blocks of pesto in plastic wrap before placing in the freezer bag, if you would like, and that will help hold it all together, but it's not necessary.
Now, after you've made the fresh pesto, there are countless things you can do with it. Mix it into fresh-cooked pasta before adding the sauce... Mix it with mayonnaise to use on sandwiches... Use it as a sauce on pizzas... Serve with crostini... Etc.
The only thing that I have to say is this... Pine nuts are DISGUSTING!! If I wanted my food to taste like a pine tree, I would go gnaw off some of the tree and just eat that. I don't know which crazy individual discovered that pine nuts are edible and then decided it would be a good idea to eat them, but it's just wrong. Pine nuts are just what you might presume - they're the seeds from inside pine cones. Someone goes and breaks open pine cones to harvest the little seeds from inside of them so that the delusional people who are told how yummy they are will eat them and then disillusion themselves further by convincing themselves that they taste good. Who are these people?! They are just wrong! I ALWAYS use walnuts, which ARE yummy, in my pesto, and I've never had bad results. :-)


½ c. walnuts
3 - 4 cloves garlic, chopped
4 - 5 oz. fresh basil leaves
½ tsp. kosher salt
½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 - 1½ c. olive oil
1 c. freshly grated Parmesan

Place the garlic in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and process until garlic is coarsely chopped. Add the walnuts to the bowl and pulse again until the walnuts are chopped and mixed with the garlic, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Add the basil leaves, salt, and pepper in batches; with the processor running, slowly pour the olive oil into the bowl through the feed tube and process until the pesto is thoroughly pureed. Add the Parmesan and puree for a minute.