If you read about our day at the pumpkin patch, you probably figured out that by the end of the day, we were exhausted! So, I decided to pick up a roasted chicken at the grocery store (I am a busy mom, after all) to add to the avocado pesto pasta that Boo helped me to whip up in a few minutes.
I am living a healthy, gluten-free and dairy free lifestyle, because I am intolerant to both gluten and lactose. So, you won’t find either of those in my recipes! I promise, it still tastes just as good, and you won’t even know those ingredients are missing. Once I decided to go GF and DF, I lost 25 pounds, as the workouts I was doing actually started to make a difference with my clean diet. Trust me, the key to losing weight is a CLEAN diet, not just exercising every day!
Also, I prefer to take as many short-cuts in cooking as I can (without using preservatives), as I don’t have a lot of spare time. So hopefully they save you some time, too!
Ingredients:
- 6 oz. Gluten Free pasta (I prefer Barilla spaghetti noodles)
- 6 Tbsp LiteHouse Freeze-Dried basil (to taste, prepared according to directions), or 1 bunch of basil
- 2 avocados, pitted
- 2 Tbsp lemon juice (to keep the avocado from turning brown)
- 3 garlic cloves (I like to use 1½ tsp minced garlic)
- ½ cup olive oil
- ½ cup pine nuts
- Sea salt & pepper
- 2 cups cooked hand-pulled chicken (optional)
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add salt. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain pasta, drizzle about 1 tbsp of oil on the pasta, and set aside.
Make the pesto by combining basil, avocado, lemon juice, garlic, and oil in a food processor. Process until smooth, and season with salt and pepper.
Toss pasta with pesto, and add the chicken to the top. Enjoy! It was that easy.