Light Pasta and Tina's Oatmeal bars

I'm sooo glad tomorrow is already Wednesday-yayyy! Work today was alright. Afterwards, I did a ton of errands and then Jill and I team taught Body Step. After B-step, I ran to BJs and picked up a bundle of exciting items! First off, BJs has the best and largest bag of mixed frozen fruit ever! I was so excited to find it! Frozen fruit is my new obessision! Once I was back, I made a fresh pasta mix based on this recipe from Cookie Baker Lynn's blog. It turned out awesome! I used whole wheat spiral pasta because I couldn't find any whole wheat bowtie. The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

8 cups broccoli florets (4 heads)
1/2 lb farfalle (bow tie) pasta (or whatever you have on hand)
1 whole chicken breast, or 1 large 1/2 breast (I only cooked up 1 chicken breast and gave it all to Josh...I wasn't in a chicken mood :))
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
2 Tbsp. good olive oil
1 tsp minced garlic
Zest of 1 lemon
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup toasted pignoli (pine) nuts
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, optional

Directions:

To toast the pignollis, place them in a dry saute pan over meium-low heat and cook, tossing often, for about 5 minutes, until light brown.

Cut the chicken into strips on the diagonal. Place the chicken in a skillet and cover with water. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, cover, turn down the heat, and let simmer till chicken is cooked through, about 10 minutes. Don't overcook, or your chicken will be rubbbery.

Cook the broccoli for 3 minuts in a large pot of boiling salted water. Remove the broccoli from the water with a slotted spoon or sieve. Place in a large bowl and set aside.

In the same water, cook the bow-tie pasta according to the package directions, about 12 minutes. Drain well and add to the broccoli.

Meanwhile, in a small saute pan, heat the butter and oil and cook the garlic and lemon zest over medium-low heat for 1 minute. Remove from heat and add 2 tsp. salt (I didn't add the salt), the pepper, and lemon juice and pour this over the broccoli and pasta. Toss Well. Season to taste, sprinkle with the pignolis and cheese and serve.

I have been using this pasta lately and I think it is just the best! I found it in the organic aisle as my grocery store.


I have also been seeing rice pasta, has anyone ever used this? Is it any good?

After dinner, I decided to bake up Tina's amazing looking oatmeal bars. Instead of raisins, I used walnuts (Josh doesn't like raisins :( ). You can find the recipe here. They turned out delicious! I can't wait to eat one for breakfast tomorrow! Thanks Tina!!