Chicken and mushroom pasta with broccoli cheese

I’ve often said that the cooking show I could really get behind would be the one where the contestants get home after 7 in the evening, get the children to bed, and then cook dinner given only what they can find in the house at the time. For added interest the ‘home’ in question would be one of the other contestant’s. I’d totally rock that show.

We had chicken at the weekend and there was a fair bit left over. I’d thought ahead and got some mushrooms, but when it came to it this evening I realized we still have a Christmas-leftover turkey and mushroom pie in the freezer, and we’ve had rice twice this week already, so I should do something a bit different. And with carbonara in mind (I highly recommend Nigella’s recipe) I decided to do chicken and mush with spaghetti.

First, I chopped the mushrooms and sautéed in copious butter with a few pickled green peppercorns. Then poured in Sunday’s leftover gravy and let it come to a bubble. Stirred in the chopped, cooked chicken, and cut the saltiness with some whole milk.

While the spaghetti was cooking I steamed the broccoli flowers until al dente and grilled some bacon rashers. Then layered the bacon on top of the broccoli, sliced some mozzarella (left over from my lunch), sprinkled with sweet paprika and grilled that.

“You can make that for me again anytime,” Jenny says.