Chicken and Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta

Valentine's Day is coming up on Monday.  My husband and I don't eat out very often, but we do like to go out for holidays (i.e. Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, birthdays) to give me a break in the kitchen.  However, for holidays like Valentine's Day, we never go out on the actual holiday - restaurants are way too crowded and it makes the evening not so relaxing.  So we just postpone it for a few days or a week.  But it is still nice to have a special dinner at home on the actual holiday.  This is one of those recipes that I might consider to be special, since it uses ingredients that I don't normally buy due to price (i.e. sun-dried tomatoes and fresh basil).  So, if you're looking to stay in on Monday, here's an option for a special dinner at home!

On Monday, I wrote about the deliciousness of homemade noodles.  Now I'm going to share the recipe in which I used those noodles.  It's a recipe that I found in our church cookbook that I had somehow skipped over every previous time I'd looked through it.  It's a pretty simple pasta dish, but it packs tons of scrumptious flavor.  For all of you who, like my husband, like pastas that are smothered in sauce, this probably isn't the recipe for you.  But don't worry, I'm working on a saucier version of this recipe, so stay tuned!!!  I've altered this one a bit from the original recipe and here's what I came up with.

Chicken and Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta
Fettuccine, cooked according to package directions
1 boneless skinless chicken breast
1-2 Tbsp butter

Salt and pepper to taste

Garlic powder

1-2 Tbsp olive oil
2-4 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup tomatoes, diced
1 1/2 Tbsp basil, minced (I suppose you could use 1 1/2 tsp dried basil instead, but it won't be nearly as good!)
2 Tbsp sun-dried tomatoes, sliced (I used sun-dried tomatoes that weren't packed in oil)

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat.  Season both sides of the chicken breast with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  Place seasoned chicken breast in skillet and cook on both sides until cooked through.  Remove chicken from skillet.  Dice chicken and set aside.

The original recipe called for shredded chicken, but I've decided it's better with diced chicken.

In the same skillet you cooked the chicken, heat olive oil over medium-low heat.  Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

When sauteing garlic, be careful not to burn it.  Burnt garlic gives dishes a bitter flavor.

Add tomatoes and basil; cook for another 30 seconds.

The tomatoes will pick up all the yummy flavor left behind by the chicken, which is why I'm using the same skillet for both.

Add sun-dried tomatoes and chicken.  Cook until heated through.  Toss with pasta and serve immediately.  In order to get the noodle/sauce ratio correct, I usually just toss individual-sized servings at a time - that way I don't end up with way too many noodles and not enough sauce!  Also, I just used a single batch of homemade noodles and it seemed to be a good amount of noodles for this recipe (if you're serving 2).