Weeknight Pesto Pasta and Chicken

This is by far my favorite weeknight dinner.  It's one of those great, "OH MY GOD, It's 7 PM and I haven't even thought of dinner dishes."
It has a secret ingredient, which probably most people will scoff at, but that makes it easy and tasty.
DRUM ROLL PLEASE . . . . . . . . . .
The secret ingredient is Papa John's garlic sauce.  You know, that little tub of garlic goodness that comes with your pizza.
This recipe evolved from the days when my kids where about 1 and 2 and both in diapers.  We ate a lot of pizza, and since I was the only one who liked those garlic sauces, they tended to collect in the fridge.  One day, I saw a box of pasta and had a flash of insight.  I could add the garlic sauce to the pasta, thus creating an easy instant sauce.

Weeknight Pesto Pasta

1/2 box bow tie pasta
2 frozen chicken tenderloin pieces
1 bag frozen veg such as a stir fry mix.  I used frozen asparagus and a handful of frozen red pepper
2 Papa John's Garlic Sauce (If you don't have any of those little containers, you can simply use 4 tablespoon butter and 1 teaspoon garlic powder)
4 Tablespoon Pesto Sauce
1/4 cup Parmesan, shredded or grated
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped

Boil water.  Add pasta.  Cook according to package directions.  While pasta is cooking, brown and cook chicken in a skillet.  Break up chicken while it is cooking into small pieces.  In the last two minutes of your pasta cooking, add frozen vegetables.  Cook about two more minutes, or until vegetables are warm through.
Drain pasta and veggies.  Add garlic sauce, pesto, Parm Cheese, and walnuts.  Add cooked chicken to top.


You can be super lazy, or just vegetarian, and leave out the chicken. It's still delicious.  This is also really good the next day, cold as sort of a pasta salad.