Many years ago, I worked at a Mexican Restaurant in Wisconsin Dells. It was really my first experience in the food industry – the good, the bad, the partying, the learning swear words en español, the ridiculously bright shirts we had to wear and eating Mexican food 5-6 times a week. Needless to say, between the partying and excessive amounts of chips and salsa I wasn’t in the best shape of my life. (Although I will say that it was a very fun summer!)

But that phase is long behind me – my friends now call me Nana, I’m at my healthy weight and thankfully I no longer own any of those ridiculous shirts, but every now and then I get those cravings for the Mexican food that I subsided off that summer.

I obviously had to rotate meals, but the tostadas was always one of my favorites and I always love a meal that can be customized!

Chicken Tostadas - 4 servings

• 1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 8 oz salsa verde
• 1 can of refried beans
• tostada shells*
• toppings: lettuce, tomato, green onions, salsa, sour cream

Preheat oven to 350° F. Place chicken in glass container and cover with salsa verde.

Bake for about 40-45 minutes, until chicken is cooked through. (I always over-cook chicken, I blame it on my Food Microbiology class)

Let cool and shred chicken.  Heat beans.

Put out toppings, beans and tostada shells and build your tostada!

*I made toastada shells by cutting sprouted tortillas into circles and then baking them at 400° F for about 2 minutes per side.

It’s not often that I would feature a white flour pasta…I rarely even buy pasta made with white flour. I’m a whole wheat kind of girl. Not to mention a Nutritionist, remember??

But this bionaturae traditional egg pasta just looks special. I know I bought it with something in mind, but a few months passed and finally it made it into a spaghetti & meatball dinner. Dare I say that it reminded me of home-made pasta?

My inexperienced fresh pasta palate, probably shouldn’t make that comparison. But I swear it came close.

Now I just have all the more reason to buy this pasta again. And even though it’s made with white flour it actually has a decent amount of protein (7 grams per serving) and I told you that it tastes amazing, right?

For a simple meal, I tossed some of the pasta with pesto and parmesan and let me just say…go get some.