Ingredients:

• Chicken: boneless, skinless
• Whole wheat pasta
• Green onions, chopped
• Red bell pepper, diced + sautéed
• Pine nuts, slow roasted
• Goat cheese, crumbled
• Olive oil
• Dried Italian seasoning
• Salt + Pepper
• Lemon Juice

Not a ton of precision or measuring on this one!  It really is just based on your own taste and just mix it all together!  Once the chicken is cooked, this literally takes minutes to put together.  The girls love helping me throw it together on busy nights (someone tries for extra goat cheese too….).

• Season the chicken with salt, pepper and dried Italian seasoning then cook via your preference (we either bake or put in the slow cooker – use chicken broth if using the slow cooker)
• Once the chicken is ready, shred it as finely as possible.
• Toss shredded chicken with cooked pasta, fresh green peppers, sautéed bell pepper, roasted pine nuts + goat cheese. Add salt, pepper, olive oil + lemon juice to taste and serve!

Tips:

• To make this even quicker, cook and shred the chicken the night before.
• The amount of olive oil and lemon juice really does depend on you but we suggest just enough to keep the pasta from drying out.
• A tablespoon or 2 of the pasta water helps add a bit of flavor and consistency also.

Enjoy!

We look forward to Thanksgiving all year long! We always host family in Chattanooga and have settled into some really meaningful traditions; a charity walk for the homeless in our community,  the official “turkey drop” into the fryer, sharing what we are thankful for, a heated political discussion (or 2) and enjoying the delightful noise of sweet cousins playing.  I absolutely love putting together our Thanksgiving menu and being in the kitchen during this time.

A friend recently asked my advice on hosting Thanksgiving at her house for the first time. It can be tough to pull it all together with such busy lives so I try to focus on the our key items and not spread my time too thin.  The star of the show at every single Thanksgiving dinner is this Ciabatta Stuffing with Chestnuts and Pancetta by Giada De Laurentiis.  If there is ever a year I don’t make it, we’ll have a major riot.  We  have 2 turkeys – 1 fried and 1 smoked. All of these are fairly involved so we keep everything else very simple.

I get the stuffing completely prepared and refrigerated the day before, and just pop in the oven on Thanksgiving day so it’s served freshly baked and warm.  You will not regret giving this a try. It really is delicious.

Enjoy and happy Thanksgiving! –Betsy (the recovering politician)

Ciabatta Stuffing with Chestnuts and Pancetta: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/ciabatta-stuffing-with-chestnuts-and-pancetta-recipe

Photo by Food Network