Winter is hanging on by its fingernails, and honestly, so are we. The days have settled into this slow, slightly fuzzy rhythm — sleeping in, feeding all the furry creatures, running a few errands here and there, watching far too much TV — which should be restorative, but somehow, I’m not exactly bursting with fresh energy. Maybe it’s too much sleep. Maybe it’s not enough. Maybe it’s just six straight weeks of cabin fever after Mike shattered his wrist ice fishing and birthday plans and spontaneous getaway evaporated in one dramatic crack of bone.

The silver lining? A whole lot of time to fall down the rabbit hole of social media cooking videos. And that’s where I stumbled onto Matthew Bounds — yes, Bounds, what are the odds — a Mississippi-based creator who has built an entire food empire on the idea that dinner doesn’t need to be fancy, it just needs to get on the table. He started during the pandemic, and now he’s got cookbooks, a restaurant in the works, and a devoted following who love his “real people” recipes. Some folks baked sourdough in 2020; he built a brand. Incredible what a spark of creativity can turn into.

So today, no travel saga. No 500 photos of beaches, mountains, or sheep. We’re skipping straight to the good stuff: one of Matt’s recipes — his Cajun’t Chicken Pasta. Inspired by the viral “Your Barefoot Neighbor” video, it’s a creamy, one-pot Cajun-style pasta loaded with crispy bacon, sun‑dried tomatoes, and a silky broth‑cream‑parmesan sauce that tastes like it simmered all day even though it absolutely did not.

Let’s dive in.

Ingredients

• 6 slices of bacon
• 4 thin slices of chicken breast (seasoned generously with Cajun seasoning, such as Tony Cachere’s, I had Creole seasoning from Tony instead of Cajun and it was great.)
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 2–3 cloves garlic, minced
• Sun-dried tomatoes, chopped – I didn’t had sun dried tomatoes, I used sun dried pesto, which worked out really well
• 2–3 tablespoons butter
• 1–2 tablespoons flour
• 2 cups chicken stock (easy though on the salt, I have chicken broth “paste” and used 2 teaspoons, one would have been fine, the creole seasoning adds quite a bit salt)
• 1 cup heavy cream
• Pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)
• Penne pasta, cooked per package instructions
• 1 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
• Fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish

Directions:

To make Cajun’t Chicken Pasta, simply…

1. In a cold wide pan add the bacon and turn to medium-high heat. After the bacon is crispy, remove to a paper towel lined plate, leaving the fat in the pan.
2. Season the chicken generously with Cajun seasoning. Add to the pan and brown each side for 2-3 minutes. Remove and set aside.
3. Cut the heat to medium-low and add the onion, sauteing until it turns translucent. Throw in the garlic and sun dried tomatoes and stir till fragrant. Add the butter and once it’s melted, then add the flour in. Stir well to combine everything and cook for a minute or two, until the flour taste is cooked off.
4. Add the chicken stock and once incorporated and the pan is deglazed, pour in the heavy cream. Season however you’d like at this point (I used pepper and more garlic powder), add in back the bacon. Cut the heat to a simmer and once the sauce is bubbling, add the chicken back to the pan, coating fully with sauce. Cover and cook for another 10 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.
5. The Barefoot Neighbor suggests to cut the chicken into chunks and return to the pan to be mixed with the pasta and parmesan.
6. I went for the “deconstructed” method and cut the chicken and served it next to the pasta and poured the sauce on top of the pasta and meat and then topped it with parmesan.

Guten Appetit!