A Quick Dinner: Pasta with Pesto Cream Sauce

I've been sick with a cold this past week, so apologies for the lack of posts. We've all been there...what do we cook when we don't have much energy to do anything? Well, besides having the husband do most of the work (wink), I managed to throw together this incredibly yummy pasta sauce. I'm not sure how reliable a recipe this will be as I was sort of throwing things together in a dizzy state, but I'm sure you can play around with the idea. Obviously, using homemade pesto would be better, but this was a very comforting, easy dinner!

Sorry for the incredibly unappetizing photo. You'll just have to trust me when I say it's delicious.
Pesto Pasta with Chicken and Artichokes

1/2 box spaghetti
1 cup leftover cooked chicken, chopped
1 can artichoke hearts, rinsed and drained, cut into quarters
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
3 Tbsp. pine nuts, toasted
1/3 cup prepared pesto (add more or less to taste)
1/2 cup cream
about 4 oz cream cheese
about 1/2 to 3/4 cup pasta cooking water
1/4 cup grated parmesan

Sauté the red onion in a little olive oil for about 5 minutes until tender, add garlic and cook another 2 minutes. Reduce heat to low and stir in cream cheese, cream and pesto sauce. Stir until cream cheese has melted. If sauce is too thick, dilute with some milk. Add artichoke hearts, chicken, parmesan and pine nuts.

Boil pasta according to package directions, salting the water well. Drain pasta when done, reserving cooking liquid. Add some pasta water to the cream sauce to achieve desired consistency. Combine pasta with cream sauce and serve. To serve this in a more presentable fashion, I would not add the chicken to the sauce, but rather top the pasta with some sliced chicken, additional pine nuts and fresh basil leaves. Serves 3-4.