Lemon Rosemary Pasta with Chicken

I could live solely off of pasta and bread, I think.  And for some reason it's been a little while since we've had good pasta.  And when you add lemon and rosemary (and chicken) to pasta... It's pretty dang good.

Flavorsssss Precious

This recipe is sort of based off of the lemon pasta from Smitten Kitchen that I made a couple of times (I didn't blog about it.  One of my five readers gave me the recipe, so it felt redundant).  Only the Smitten recipe Sam didn't like.  He thought it was way too lemony and I thought it was a little too complicated.

And so this idea was born.  And it's pretty simple.

Ta-da!

Lemon Rosemary Pasta
From My Brain 
-- serves 2 with a little leftover for lunch tomorrow

1 lemon, halved

1 good-sized sprig of fresh rosemary

~1/4 lb fresh grated parmesan cheese (it's not a lot)

1 handfull long pasta (spaghetti, linguine, etc)

1 or 2 chicken breasts

1) Put a dash of olive oil in a pan and bring the pan to medium heat.  Score your chicken breasts strip-size (but don't cut all the way through).  Put the breasts in the frying pan to brown and cook through.  Take one lemon half and squeeze contents over top and bottom, periodically over the time the chicken is cooking.  Pull some rosemary from the sprig and break leaves up, sprinkling over breasts (and in the serrations if you can).  Add a little fresh-ground salt if you want.  Continue to cook (on lower heat once browned so it doesn't burn) until chicken is cooked all the way through.

2) In the mean time, have a pot of water boiling.  Cook pasta according to package, adding a few drops of lemon juice to the water, if you want.  When al dente, drain.

3) Return pasta to pot.  Squeeze second half of lemon onto pasta.  Zest both rind halves well into the pasta.  Stir up.  Strip remaining leaves from rosemary sprig and break up into pot.  Congratulations, your hands now smell amazing.  Stir.  Toss in as much parmesan cheese as you want.  We used a little less than 1/4 lb fresh.

4. Cut chicken into strips.  Serve on top of or next to noodles.  I actually cut them into chunks and stirred them in, but I think I like it the other way better.  Anyway.

Bon Appetit!!!

Grumps don't get pasta for dinner.