My favorite pasta, currently and by far, is orecchiette, i.e. “little ears” of Puglian origin. The relatively dense, roughly hewn domes hold sauce well and have an excellent toothiness to them. The first time I had it was at Boccaccia, a local restaurant here in Chattanooga, TN which also happens to be my current place of employment. The owner, Luciano, despite having a penchant for all at once being elated and minutes later infuriated, has mind blowing recipes. He serves his Orechiette in a sauce of Italian sausage, roasted red peppers, and goat cheese. That meager description does not do it justice. It is amazing; I want to eat it every day, and I virtually can because I pay half price for it. That said, as pleased as I was with my creation, it still did not touch Luciano’s recipe (as prepared by Oscar, our wonderful chef). The worst part is Luciano would give me that recipe over his dead body, if I had to guess, which I don’t.

That said, Green Life (Chattanooga’s very own pay check devouring organic grocery) carries these rustic brown boxes of it that conjure images of a bucolic Tuscan kitchen covered in a fine patina of flour. On numerous occasions I have put a box in my basket only to put it back on the shelf citing expense and the hip expanding evils of pasta. However, this past Thursday, after sitting in the parking lot for half an hour looking through the cookbooks I’d brought along, I still couldn’t find anything that excited me enough to cook it for dinner. I finally decided, after much deliberation, to do my own version of Bon Appetit’s “Penne with Greens, Olives, and Feta” (The recipe on Epicurious.com says “Penne with Green Olives and Feta” but this makes no sense as it calls for kalamata… I call typo!) The basis of greens, pasta, olives, and cheese served as the inspiration for the following dish.

Obviously, the first of these creative liberties was taken with the pasta, and I finally treated myself to an over-priced box of artisan orecchiette. It was very exciting. Not wanting to deprive E. of meat, I purchased two modestly sized boneless, skinless chicken breasts to add to the mix. Instead of feta, I bought crumbled Montrachet goat cheese which I thought would be a better foil for the salty olives. I chose swiss chard as my green, as it was looking particularly sexy that day.

Once home I roughly chopped a mix of Picholine and Kalamata olives and roasted some pine nuts (about 7 minutes at 375). I have a giant bag of pine nuts in my freezer which my Aunt Brenda graciously brought me from one of her pilgrimages to the nearest Cosco in Huntsville, Alabama, thus I use them at every opportunity, or at least I should. I made the garlic, lemon zest, and Italian parsley mixture as per the recipe. First I cooked my greens, intending to cook the pasta in the same water, but being rainbow chard, it turned the water a lively shade of magenta. Fearing that my prized orecchiette would come out pink, I dumped the water and boiled a fresh pot for the pasta. The chicken was given the olive oil, kosher salt, and fresh cracked pepper treatment before meeting it’s fate in my Le Crueset grill pan. The cooking of the chicken produced great billows of smoke which necessitated the opening of all the windows and E.’s futile flapping of the back door. Smoke not withstanding, the chicken turned out perfect. After the pasta was cooked, after about 16 minutes, I drained it, added the cooked greens, 2 tbs. of olive oil (three sounded like a lot to me), about half a cup of goat cheese (loves me some goat cheese), the sliced grilled chicken, olives, and roasted pine nuts. I tossed it all together until the goat cheese formed a creamy sauce. I then sprinkled the pasta with the parsley, lemon zest, and garlic mixture, a bit of fleur de sel, and yet more goat cheese. The above and below pictures are the result. It was rad.