Easy "Whatever You Have" Chicken and Pasta

This is one of those meals that comes together fairly quickly, and one that I will often make when we spend too long working in the yard or don't start dinner until later in the day. Since I mostly use items that are already in my pantry, it's a good last-minute dinner for days that require that type of meal!!

So here's what I used this time:

A pound of pasta (I used the whole wheat penne from Trader Joe's) a pound of chicken, garlic, a few zucchini, a can of diced tomatoes, and some olive oil and butter to brown things in. Also some spices, I'll show you below.

I like to cube the zucchini and chicken into smaller pieces, they seem to cook more evenly that way and brown nicely.

So the spices that I seasoned the zucchini and the chicken with are above. Salt and pepper, then 21 seasoning salute (Trader Joe's version of Mrs Dash) and a bit of Emeril's Essence.

I cook the zucchini, in a tablespoon each of olive oil and butter, and season it well. Then I take it out of the skillet and cook the chicken the same way:

After the chicken is cooked, I add the zucchini back to the pan, along with whatever items I'm using. I will sometimes use artichoke hearts (the ones packed in water), sun dried tomatoes, asparagus, eggplant, olives, feta or Gorgonzola cheese, spinach or chard, whatever you have that sounds good to you!!

At this point I'll cube up some butter to finish the sauce , and add some Parmesan cheese:

Oh, and I had some fresh basil, so I chopped some up and added that!

Then, toss with the pasta! This dish is GREAT leftover too!! You could easily make it vegetarian by adding beans instead of the chicken.

I usually serve this with this french bread .