Pasta Prima-Nesca with Chicken

First, a fun fact...

Spaghetti alla puttanesca (literally "whore's style spaghetti" in Italian)

...what?

Anway. After finally going to the grocery store and stocking up on actual food, this is what I made. It's a hybrid of Pasta Primavera and Pasta Puttanesca. I used chicken beeeecaaaause I had a lot of frozen chicken.

Ingredients:
1 lb Thin spagetti (why? b/c that's what I have in my pantry and b/c angel hair is my fave)
2 chicken breast, sliced into strips
1 zucchini, chopped
1/2 a bag of frozen squash (or 1/2 a large fresh squash - I happened to have frozen on hand) - cook according to directions and chop
1/2 onion, chopped
2 tbs chopped garlic (more or less depending on how much you love garlic - i LOVE garlic)
1/2 jar of pre-made tomato sauce (again, in the pantry already)
9 or so chopped green olives (I used ones with pimento b/c I had them leftover from bloody marys)
2 tsp powdered thyme
2 tsp dried basil
a small container of flour for dredging the chicken
olive oil for cooking
salt & pepper

I like to prepare the pasta first, to let it cook while I'm cooking other things. So, I put on a pot of water - brought it to a boil, salted it and dropped in the pasta and let it cook to al dente.

I put some flour into a small dish and seasoned with salt and pepper and the thyme, then i lightly dredged the chicken in the seasoned flour. I heated up a skillet with some olive oil and cooked the chicken until golden brown and cooked through. I love the way this smells. I hate how the oil pops at me! After this was finished cooking, I put it aside to rest.

I added a little more oil to the same pan, then sauted the onions and garlic til they just started to get soft, then I added the zucchini and then the squash (if your squash is pre-coooked like mine was, I added it at the very end of cooking the other veggies). Once the veggies are soft, add the pasta sauce. I like to add a little water at this point to loosen up the sauce (also, I think this is habit from learning to cook with my depression era Grandmother - always makes the sauce go farther! and really, with pre-made sauce, you can water it down a little and all the flavor is still there. I personally think premade spagetti sauce is a little thicker than I like my tomato sauce anyway).

I cut the cooked chicken up into a little smaller chunks to match up to the chopped veggies and I added it into the sauce with the veggies.

VOILA! Sauce and pasta done!. To plate, I tossed the pasta in the sauce and then topped the whole thing with the chopped olives and a little bit of the Parmesan cheese.

About 4 servings made. 

Result: a tasty and hearty meal with a bunch of random stuff I had in my kitchen. Variations: Probably canned tuna would be a great protein to go with this - also anchioves too! Would be an even quicker cook with these rather than the chicken.