Chicken Scampi

Cilantro grilled chicken breast was the recipe to make last week in my cooking group. Since we were out of town, I'm just now getting around to making it. I decided to take the original recipe and expand upon it using some of the fresh produce we had.

I followed the recipe for the scampi butter fairly closely, as in I used all of the ingredients listed just didn't measure them out. I used dried onion and parsley in place of fresh, didn't have any white pepper on hand and didn't use the white wine - if you want measure it all out that's fine, if not just add ingredients to taste - I think it's fairly hard to mess this up.

In a large skillet I sauteed chopped mushrooms and halved cherry tomatoes in some of the scampi butter. Let the mushrooms and tomatoes cook down for several minutes, add more butter if needed. Add spinach leaves and let wilt a few minutes. Chop the grilled chicken and add to the skillet, combine all ingredients. Add whole wheat spaghetti and combine, add more butter if needed.

Both the husband and I thought the pasta was delicious, he even said he thought it was the best pasta concoction I'd come up with recently. Next time I think I'd forgo making the scampi butter and just saute the mushrooms and tomatoes in a little bit of butter and olive oil, adding the herbs and other stuff to the skillet as I go.

Someone in my cooking group played around with the original recipe and made a pizza, which I think sounds delicious. She melted the butter on a pizza crust and topped with diced chicken, mushrooms, Parmesan, Mozzarella and Provolone cheeses. Yum!

As has been my habit of lately, I'm submitting this dish last minute into Ruth of Once Upon A Feast's wonderful blogging event Presto Pasta Night, hosted this week by Got No Milk. Check out the round-up tomorrow for some delicious pasta dishes. *Disclaimer* I was late with my entry for this week's PPN round-up, but am first for next week's which will be hosted by Ruth. Make sure to check out this week and next for great ideas & recipes!