My spin on Spaghettini Chicken

I am mildly obsessed with healthy eating right now. I made some pretty big leaps with dinner last night and everyone ate it, no one complained, and no one spent any extra time in the bathroom later... if you know what I mean. Suddenly adding loads of whole grains and veggies to one's diet could do that to a person!

This was dinner last night.

Spaghettini Chicken.

With tomatoes, carrots, onion, garlic, spinach, wheat germ and multi grain pasta!


I used this recipe for inspiration, but sort of did my own thing with it. Especially since I wanted to add veggies and they have to be smuggled in or my kids will eat around them (and complain!).

I pureed 1/4 of a white onion with 2 cloves of garlic in mini-food processor.
Sauteed them in olive oil.
While the onions & garlic were sauteing, I added my uncooked chicken strips.
Once the chicken strips were cooked through, I added:
Two cans of diced tomatoes (one can pureed) and 1/2 cup pureed carrots.
Seasoned with Italian Spices, to taste.
I chose not to add tomato sauce, but my husband thought it needed some.
I also did not use the chicken broth as called for in the recipe linked above.
I did add a little water...
And wheat germ!

I let it all simmer together for about three hours, as I don't really care for chicken and wanted the chicken to absorb the flavors from the sauce. YUM!

Added fresh spinach leaves to the pasta sauce about 30 mins before serving.

Served over Barilla Plus Thin Spaghetti Multi-grain Pasta. The pasta noodles alone were fabulous. I had no idea! I will never buy 'regular' pasta again.

Thank you, Susan, for the Wheat Germ. I'm off to buy some of my very own today!

I think I will pick up some wheat pita bread and make some red pepper humus this afternoon. I'm pretty sure Zach will gobble it up, none the wiser that he's eating garbanzo beans!

Also... I'm reading Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious cookbook - thanks for the loan, Molly. I don't know if her recipes are any good, but I'm all for pureeing fruits and veggies and adding them to our everyday meal rotation! She has great ideas and I'm inspired!