Italian Baked Chicken + great lunch with best friends

I got this recipe from Giada from FOOD TV. I was browsing their site over the weekend looking for something new to do with chicken. Like most families, I make chicken a few times a week, so I am ALWAYS looking for new ideas! This one sounded really good. I did alter a few things, she put bread crumbs on top of the casserole and the instructions said to put dots of butter all over the top, but I didn’t think that was necessary. This version serves 4, but you can easily double the recipe (which I did) if you have a bigger family.

Ingredients
1 cup pastina pasta (I used elbow macaroni)
1 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup cubed chicken breast (1-inch cubes)
1/2 cup diced onion (about 1/2 a small onion, which I pureed with the canned tomatoes)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes with juice
1 cup shredded mozzarella
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until just tender, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Drain pasta into a large mixing bowl.

Meanwhile, put the olive oil in a medium saute pan over medium heat. Add the chicken and cook for 3 minutes. Add the onions and garlic, stirring to combine, and cook until the onions are soft and the chicken is cooked through, about 5 minutes more. Put the chicken mixture into the bowl with the cooked pasta. Add the canned tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, parsley, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine. Place the mixture in a buttered 8 by 8 by 2-inch baking dish. In a small bowl mix together the bread crumbs and the Parmesan cheese. Sprinkle over the top of the pasta mixture. Dot the top with small bits of butter. Bake until the top is golden brown, about 30 minutes.

Holy cow it was so good! It was hard for me not to have seconds, but now I have some leftover for lunches at work.

AND, the calories aren’t that bad either:

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Today was twinfest! My twin sister Biz and I got together with our oldest friends, who are also twins. They celebrated a birthday this week, so we got together for lunch and had hours of laughing and talking and good food!
Biz made this cake, check out her blog for the recipe, it was amazing!

They are 5 months younger than Biz and I, but we assured them, 42 isn’t so bad so far!!!

I made my green salsa, and Biz brought her red salsa, it was so good!

We ordered pizza, there was LOTS leftover!!

And what better thing to have with pizza when it’s in the 90’s outside??

It was a great afternoon. It’s so awesome that we’ve been friends for so long!! 34 years!

What is your longest friendship??