Easy Pasta Dinner

Tonight, I whipped together a surprisingly tasty pasta dish and thought I'd share my culinary brilliance with you in case you wanted to emulate. I was in the mood for a tomato-based cream sauce and used some of what I remembered from the last alfredo-ish dish I made to create a veritable masterpiece. Sorry no pictures, but it's probably just as well since it's kinda weird to look at.

While bringing my water to a boil, I sauteed some onions, carrots, broccoli florets and sliced almonds in about half a stick of butter. Once my pasta was bubbling away (I used whole wheat rotini), I added about half a block of cream cheese. After it started to melt, I added a half cup of milk.

Spice-wise, I used cracked pepper, salt and red pepper flakes. Then I added a can of organic diced tomatoes, liquid and all, as well as some diced leftover rotisserie chicken. At this point, it looked pretty disgusting and I thought for sure I'd screwed the pooch on dinner, but since I was committed, I plunged ahead and sprinkled in some parm, then dumped the whole sticky, ugly looking mess into my pot of now-drained pasta and combined.

Upon spooning some of the questionable grub into bowls and sprinkling some more cheese on top, we dug in, only to find it was, in fact, delicious. We both had two bowls. I'd definitely make it again, maybe even adding a little vodka, as I imagine a vodka sauce is kind of creamy, tomato-y, though I'm probably remembering it wrong.

The only thing I'd do differently next time is omit the almonds, maybe substituting pine nuts, maybe leaving nuts out all together. We'll see what kind of mood I'm in.