Tuscan Chicken Skillet
Someone asked me the other day if Laura and I intend for every dinner on SPC from now on to be made in a skillet. And I got a bit defensive about it. We do lots of different recipes here! Look, here’s…. oh, that one is in a skillet. But check this out… oh, that one is, too. Well, we’ve got some tray bakes! Okay, so we’ve been on a bit of a roll with one-pan, one-pot or one-baking sheet dinners lately. I don’t know if it’s the extra stress of holiday prep or if we’ve finally just embraced our true, lazy natures but we’re a bit obsessed with making things very simple. It’s just plain survival at this point.
Honestly, it’s not just the holidays, it’s this life stage. The other day I was listening to a famous food writer being interviewed on one of my favourite food podcasts – Radio Cherry Bombe – and she was talking about cooking intuitively, without recipes, without a plan, as a way to really be in touch with food. There would have been a time in my life when I would have felt the aspirational pull of that sentiment. Like, yeah, I should be cooking intuitively, without recipes, without a plan. But right now? I just shook my head. It’s just not where I’m at. I don’t think it’s where you’re at either. And for the record, I don’t think it means you’re any less in touch with your food. With all due respect to this very intelligent, articulate food writer, just doing it at all when you’ve got kids makes you a culinary giant. Simple is fine. Simple is freaking fantastic.
Oh, and I nearly forgot, so is this dinner. It’s a really easy, one-pot dinner that I think you’ll like. Let me know, okay?
photo by Maya Visnyei
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsps olive oil
- 1 lb chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 1/4 tsp oregano
- 1/4 tsp thyme
- 1 1/2 cups mushrooms, sliced
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes
- 19 oz can tomatoes
- 14 oz can cannellini beans, drained
- 1/4 tsp chili powder
Method
Pour the oil into a large skillet and warm to medium heat. Brown the chicken. You may have to work in batches. Remove from the pan and set aside. Drain all but about 1 or 2 Tbsps of fat.
Add the mushrooms, oregano and thyme to the pan and allow the mushrooms to become quite soft and brown. Remove them from the pan and set aside.
Add the onion and garlic and cook for about three minutes until they're soft and fragrant. Add the sugar, sun dried tomatoes, canned tomatoes and beans. Simmer for about 5 minutes, breaking up the tomatoes with the back of a spoon. Add the chili powder.
Gently tip in the chicken and mushrooms and simmer for another 10 minutes, until the meat is cooked through.
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Hey, thanks for stopping by!
We're Ceri and Laura, a couple of magazine-editors-turned-food-bloggers. Also, we're mothers obsessed with delicious, healthy, family food. We're constantly thinking of ways to make your time (and our own!) in the kitchen easier and more productive, but still nostalgic for the days when dinner was cereal eaten over the kitchen sink.
2 Comments
Candy
December 22, 18:54husband is making this tonight and noticed you called for 1/4 tsp of chili powder but then never said when to use it
Laura
January 15, 10:52Hi, So sorry for the omission. We’ve add the chili powder to the method. It goes in after the tomatoes but before the chicken. Hope this is helpful and sorry to have left you hanging when you were trying to get dinner on the table. We hate it when that happens so we really apologize. Best, Laura