I was so proud of my little chicken when she came up with this method of preparing a fat pasta dish.  I thought that for someone who does not cook, it was quite original.

We were checking out the cupboard when her eyes focused on some squid ink pasta and a jar of Alfredo Sauce. She said to me, “ Why don’t we cook the pasta, put some Alfredo sauce on it and combine it with grilled chicken?” That combination of ingredients had never occurred to me before – I thought that she was a genius!

On this particular day, I used half a packet of squid ink spaghetti, half a jar of Alfredo sauce, 4 oz of frozen grilled chicken strips and a generous sprinkling of chopped cilantro.

Method – Put the sauce and the chicken together in a microwave-safe bowl and warm until done and pour on the cooked pasta, garnish with the cilantro. It was pretty good, not the healthiest, but perfect for a weekday dinner after a hard day at work, especially if you serve it with a salad on the side.

You can also add sautéd onions or garlic or parmesan cheese or anything else your heart desires. What I described above is the short and super-fast version. You can also make the alfredo and the chicken from scratch but this is not the purpose of this article.

I did not take a picture of the finished dish because I consider the food I make “ugly-delicious” – great tasting but not picture worthy. So I went cruising on the internet trying to find a photo that I could use for the posting. That is when I encountered a picture of the almost exact dish I thought my little chicken had invented on Pinterest. So she was not a genius after all – just a hungry soul with a good imagination.

Cover photo by Anastasiya Tsiasemnikava