Ah! The sun again! Who knew May could be so gray? Now that the clouds have cleared, I can see my yard for what it is now: overgrown and still muddy in some spots. I like to think of cutting the grass like shaving. Once it starts to itch, it’s time to cut. With all this grass growing, it urges me into a refresh, where I want to change everything.
Some of you might call this “spring cleaning,” whereas I call it “madness.” I’ve made decisions in Spring that I don’t remember in the Fall, and don’t even ask me about the Winter. Move a bookshelf from one corner to another, all of sudden I can’t remember where I placed a certain book because it’s 5 feet off in another direction. Thus, I go outside, to the itchy yard.
When I haven’t been shooing the cats out from the garden, I’ve been pinching off basil flowers every so often to keep them growing. Basil has become a summer tradition of mine since I was in eighth grade. My sister picked me up on my last day of middle school and took me to her friend’s house, who happened to have a pool. For dinner that evening, we had a chicken pesto pasta, not too dissimilar to one I’ve had my whole life—one my mother made me, and her mother made her.
Albeit, it’s a more modern contribution to the family recipe box, but it’s always a crowd pleaser. What made this pesto come together a little different than all the rest was I was asked to pick basil for it. I had no idea how a pesto came together! We always just emptied a jar of it straight into the pasta.
There I was, in a backyard herb garden, with basil that was as tall as I was…and I wasn’t exactly a short eighth grader. These wide, slick leaves seemed to melt in my hands and gave off the most intoxicating smell. I’d read about herb gardens, but no one in my family ever really kept one. A farm was all vegetables and fruit trees as far as I was concerned.
All around me were different mints, dill, fennel, and rosemary bushes. You never can capture how amazing seeing something for the first time really is—that sense of discovery, followed by pure excitement. Planting rows of purple hull peas and heirloom tomatoes was just routine, but something about an herb garden felt a bit more magical, intimate.
Soon enough, I started seeing herb garden kits at Walmart and plant stores. For my birthday that year I got one of those kits where you can grow basil, just because I couldn’t stop marveling over this newfound herb.
Fast forward to college, and I always had a handful of herb plants on hand for cooking and smelling. Between me and my friend Mallory, we were covered up in creeping lavender and lemon thyme…all these more choice varieties that we could experiment with. In fact, Mallory credits the catnip she grew with bringing up the cat she still owns, Aja (and her belated sister, Raja), all the way back in that four bedroom apartment in Montevallo.
I wax poetic about all this, to say that with the summer already here, my basil plants are about to get a workout. Sure, I make pesto that I haven’t really measured out. John came up with it—it’s pecans, basil, garlic, lemon juice and olive oil combined in a food processor. Season with some salt and pepper, and you have a Black Belt version of pesto (since I don’t know where in the Hale you would find pine nuts around here). You can also add some parmesan cheese…freshly grated, of course.
When John first came up with this pesto, it was when we had a pot of African Blue Basil—a perennial variety—and I wanted to make him my family’s Chicken Pasta. That’s what we called a pot full of penne pasta covered in jarred pesto, with chicken and some other additions. In fact, it was quite an easy, quick meal since everything could be bought ready made, aside from the pasta.
I’d watch my mother furiously throw open one jar after another, a box of feta crumbles, sprinkling in salt and pepper. Before I knew it, I’d be climbing up a barstool to a bowl of steaming hot, fragrant Chicken Pasta.
Here, then, is my favorite, lazy day pasta.
Chicken Pasta
1 (1 pound) box penne pasta
1.5 pounds cooked chicken, chopped
1 (6.5 ounce) jar pesto sauce
1 (8 ounce) jar sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil
1 (4 ounce) package feta crumbles
Salt, pepper, olive oil, to taste
Boil and salt pasta water, adding the salt right before the water begins to boil. Salt generously to flavor the pasta. Add the penne and cook until al dente, about 10 to 12 minutes. Reserve about 1/4 cup of the pasta water, then strain off.
In a large bowl, preferably one for serving, add the pasta, and remaining ingredients. You may wish to strain off the oil from the sun dried tomatoes before adding them to the dish. Season with salt and pepper, adding any pasta water to the dish if there is not enough moisture. Serve immediately.
That’s it! Well, that’s the base recipe. Over my own lifetime, this same base recipe saw a few evolutions. For one, the chicken itself was sometimes just a chopped up rotisserie bird. Other times, we’d buy breast tenderloins, chop them up, and sprinkle them with Italian herb seasoning.
Then, for a brief period of time, I was an adamant vegetarian. Shocking, I know, but in a family of carnivores that didn’t last very long. Especially during football season. Nevertheless, my family was somewhat accommodating when it came to chicken pasta, adding black beans for the protein in place of the chicken.
Well, they ended up liking that addition so much, it remained in the pasta recipe long past my stint as a vegetarian. Another addition was a bag of spinach, straight from the pre-mixed salad selection. This “beefed up” the pasta, so to speak. Not to mention, you can add it in right before serving and all the residual heat will wilt the spinach right away without losing too much of its nutrients.
This has always been my go-to meal when I’m pressed for time, but I still want to impress. In college, this became a weeknight favorite that I made at least once a month, if not more when it was colder. I’ve even had this pasta cold and it works, if that doesn’t bother you too much.
Now, the only note I have is about the oil. When I was growing up, it was customary to just open a jar and dump everything in, including the oil in the sun-dried tomatoes. What results is, admittedly, rather oily. In my adult years, I’ve opted to leave the rest of the oil in the jar out, because this dish really doesn’t need it all that much.
My grandmother would not only dump in the whole jar, she’d dress it with even more olive oil before serving. Let’s just say, I had no need for a bowl of Raisin Bran the next morning. Also, you might want to chop up the sun dried tomatoes, if you just want more distribution.
If you opt to make a fresh pesto, this is the dish where it will really shine. Another little tweak is instead of a bag of spinach, you could chop up fresh basil leaves and garnish each plate with them for the fresh greens portion. Be a bit more judicious with your garnishing than you would with a bag of spinach, since basil is already in the pesto.
In other words, this is a recipe that I’ve seen riffed in a million different ways now and was one of the first examples I had of adaptability in recipe-making. In fact, pasta is a marvelous canvas for all kinds of savory ideas, that’s why you see them on almost every menu. It’s a cheap, filling, comforting dish that can suit a variety of tastes, my basil-loving tastebuds included.
I don’t know how much simpler you can get with a meal that comes together from all boxes and jars, unless you give up the ghost and get the frozen lasagna. Don’t think I’m above that myself, but I usually save that chapter of laziness for when there’s a heavy sweater to hide all that lasagna behind. Just don’t give me Hamburger Helper without telling me first, or having some antacid handy.
