Recipe - Creamy Chicken, Pumpkin and Pine Nut Pasta

So, Friday night's dinner consisted of a recipe made up on the fly: creamy chicken, pumpkin and pine nut pasta:

Creamy chicken, pumpkin and pine nut pasta

This recipe successfully fed three, but would comfortably feed four and stretch to six.

Ingredients:

Pasta of your choice

Prior to preparing the ingredients for the sauce, put the pasta water on to boil. While it is heating, prepare the following ingredients.

olive oil - approximately 2 tablespoons (or enough for a thin layer in the bottom of your frypan)

approximately 100 gm of pine nuts - more or less as you prefer

3 cloves of garlic - finely diced or crushed

1/2 teaspoon of ground black peppe

2 chicken breasts - diced to 2cm or 1 inch cubes

2 slices of butternut pumpkin (approximately 1 1/2cm or 1/2 inch thick) - diced into cubes

6-8 mushrooms ( with caps up to about 5cm or 2 inches in diameter) - sliced

1/2 red capsicum (pepper if you're in the States) - diced to approximately 1cm or 1/4 inch squares

250gms (or thereabouts) of cheese - grated

250-300mls of thickened cream

The water for the pasta should now be boiling. Add the pasta to the water and cook as normal, while preparing the sauce as follows:

Process

 1. Place the oil in a deep pan, or pot and heat gently.

2. Add pine nuts, pepper and garlic

3. Add diced chicken and brown, increasing heat to medium

4. Add pumpkin and mushroom and cook together

5. When the pumpkin is cooked through, add the cheese and the thickened cream

6. Stir the cream and the cheese through the chicken and pumpkin mix, until the cheese has melted and the cream blended through.

7. Allow to simmer, stirring occasionally to prevent cheese mix sticking to the bottom of the pan.

 8. Serve when ready. (I like to put the pasta in the bowl and then top with the sauce, but you may wish to do this differently. You may also like to have extra grated cheese to add.)