Cajun Chicken Pasta (4 Star)

Another 4 star rating! Amazing! Although I must clarify by saying that the boys ate only the pasta and chicken, picking out all other foreign objects. Well, close enough, I guess. Brandon and I were happy to take care of their rejected items.

This pasta was divine. It was fantastic. Brandon said it's in his "top five". (What else is in his top five? I should know this.)

I made homemade pasta again. I guess I'm on a homemade pasta kick this week. This time I used this recipe from Allrecipes, making it whole wheat, so I'm copying the recipe below with my changes.

Grandma's Noodles II

Ingredients
1 egg, beaten
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons milk
3/4 cup sifted whole wheat flour
2 Tablespoons vital wheat gluten flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder (optional)

Directions
1.Combine egg, salt, milk. Add flour. (For thicker noodles add baking powder to flour before mixing. [I didn't use baking powder.]) Separate into two balls. Wrap in plastic and rest for 20 minutes.
2.Roll out dough, cut into strips and spread to dry--dust with a little flour. Let dry for approximately 2 hours. (I didn't do the drying part because I didn't have time but I thought my pasta turned out great, anyway.)
3.Drop into boiling water--cook for about 8-10 minutes or until al dente.

I doubled the above pasta recipe to use in the Cajun Chicken Pasta recipe that I found on Pioneer Woman's site. Due to the fact that I wanted to make it right away and had most of the ingredients but not all, I did make some changes, but I'm sure it would have been even better if I had everything the recipe called for. I didn't have tomato so I omitted that, I didn't have a green pepper but I had two red so I used those, I didn't have cream so I used a can of evaporated milk and I used about a fourth a cup of flour mixed into the milk to thicken it all. I also didn't have fresh parsley so I used dried. I didn't have cajun spice so I used paprika, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder in a ratio of 1:1:1/4:1/4 respectively, and I went easy on it, since I did want my boys to eat it. But it definitely had a nice kick. I also used brined chicken again so I didn't add any salt except a little in the sauce.

This recipe cooks fast like a stir fry, so it is beneficial to have all ingredients out, chopped, and ready to go. Cooking it on high heat smoked up my whole kitchen and living room and I didn't burn anything; I guess it just caused my pan and the oil in it to smoke. It made me cough and I had to open up all my windows and turn on all my fans. While I was making this, I was thinking, "I'm never making this again," because it was so smoky and I was making a huge mess, but after eating it, I know I will make it again because it was so awesome.