Chicken Parmesan Pasta Toss

Rarely does it happen that I'm figuring out what to make for dinner at 5:00, but that's what has happened to me today. We're going out of town in a few days, so I was trying to make dinners this week that wouldn't leave a whole mess of leftovers in the fridge that would end up going to waste. Then I remembered that tonight we're hosting some kids from Wisconsin that are visiting our church; they're supposed to have dinner before we pick them up, but I thought I should make something that there would be enough of in case they were hungry. So that ruled out what was originally slated for tonight--that and the fact that I don't the right kind of cheese. Oops. I tried to rearrange my menu plan for the week, but everything else I was going to make had ingredients that I was missing. So I had to come up with something new.

I looked in the fridge to see exactly what kind of cheese I had and saw a bag of mozzarella (or Italian blend--I'm not exactly sure which it was), so I started to think about what I could do with that. I remembered this random recipe I had thrown together at one point and thought this would be good. Woo hoo!

Chicken Parmesan Pasta Toss
2 chicken breasts
2 egg whites
Italian bread crumbs
8 ounces (dried) rotini pasta
2 cups spaghetti sauce
1 cup mozzarella cheese
Grated parmesan

Cut chicken breasts into bite size pieces. Place egg whites in a pie plate, place bread crumbs into a gallon Ziploc bag. Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet. Put chicken pieces into egg whites and coat chicken. Transfer chicken to Ziploc bag and close bag. Shake to coat chicken pieces. Move chicken pieces to skillet with olive oil; cook until golden brown and cooked through.

Meanwhile, cook pasta in boiling water and drain when done cooking. Return pasta to pasta pot, add in chicken. Pour in spaghetti sauce, mozzarella cheese, and parmesan. Stir to combine. Serve.

*****

I have some pasta left in the fridge from the Chicken Cacciatore I made at the end of last week, so I can use up that and just cook up a little extra to go with it. I have some marinara left from the meatball pie and I saw an opened jar of Ragu in my fridge I can use up, too. The pasta I have in the fridge is spaghetti, and I have linguine in the pantry, so I'll be using those instead of rotini.

I think we'll just have some bread and salad with this. It's the Asian salad blend I bought last week, but I want to use it before it goes bad, so we'll just have to deal with an Italian dinner and an Asian salad. I'll just say we're continental. Yeah, that's the ticket...continental!

*****

This was only okay this time. It was more like spaghetti with chunks of chicken than I remember it being the last time I made it. It was decent, and it came together easily, so I can't really complain. However, the Asian Blend Fresh Express salad was super yummy!!! I will definitely get that one again. I could eat the whole bag on my own.