Creamy Chicken Pasta

Creamy pasta with a hint of garlic and topped with pine nuts for a little crunch. 

I cannot lie to you, I love pasta, my general problem when it came to eating pasta was portion control, as in, on a good day I could eat 2 portions without thinking it was large.  I remember the first time that I weighed out the pasta and got 60g, I could have sworn that there was a problem with my scales and re weighed it about 5 times.  I seriously thought that it was a joke. 

Then I realized how many propoints there was in carbonara.  Now, I don't really like the taste of carbonara, however, I am partial to some creamy pasta but when your on WeightWatchers, one thinks that these meals are literally only for a treat. 

Do any of you remember the week you were starting WeightWatchers and eating all of the meals or treats that you thought that you would never have while being good? 

Then do you remember a point in your weightloss journey when you got so sick of eating a certain food, because you were eating so much of it because it had a low propoint value.  For me this was chicken.  It was a long time before I ate it again.

Recently though I have been eating it a lot because I'm jazzing it up and I'm really enjoying it.  So I was thinking that I would like a chicken pasta dinner but I did want cream and I got my thinking cap on and this is what I came up with. 

This will literally be on your plate in 30 minutes.  I used spinach in this but if you really don't like it you could sub in another vegetable but I would seriously recommend that you try it. 

In this there is WeightWatchers Thick Cream.  I know a lot of you were saying that you find it very hard to get, which it can be as it was like gold dust recently in my local Dunnes Stores but I would say that if you say it to the manager and make sure that it is the manager, they will get it in for you.  If you don't want to go face to face, ring them and ask to speak to the manager and just mention that there are many WeightWatchers classes in your area so it would be of benefit to them aswel as to you. 

WeightWatchers Propoints per serving 10
WeightWatchers Propoints per recipe 40
Serves 4 

Ingredients

240g of pasta of choice
2 chicken breasts diced
1 Tbl of flour
Salt & Pepper 
1 Tbl garlic granules 
60ml chicken stock
60ml slim line milk ( I used almond milk)
60g WeightWatchers Thick Cream 
Spinach, torn and chopped into small strips 
1 Tbl parmesan cheese 
1 Tbl of pine nuts 
Spray Oil

Directions

Boil pasta according to pack instructions for al dente.  Reserve pasta water, you can cook the spinach in this water and then a couple of Tablespoons for finishing off the dish.   Season the diced chicken with salt, pepper and garlic.  sprinkle the flour over the chicken and toss to coat completely. 

Mist a large saute pan with spray oil and heat over a medium heat.  When hot, not smoking but hot, add in the chicken.   Cook, stirring a lot until just cooked. Reduce heat to low to medium.  Pour a little of the chicken stock over the chicken and stir very fast.  Pour a little of the milk and stir.  Stir until liquid starts to thinking and slowly add both stock and milk a little at a time to keep the liquid nice and thick. Once thick, turn the heat off completely.

At this point cook the spinach, literally 3 minutes will do of boiling the spinach.  Drain and ensure that you squeeze out as must moisture as possible. 

Add in pasta and spinach to the chicken and sauce.  Add in the cream at this point.   Stir and toss to coat.  You can pour in a little of the pasta water to loosen the sauce if you want at this stage. 

Sprinkle with parmesan and pine nuts. 

Enjoy the Niptuck way, so you don't have to!