A recipe for chicken with tomatoes and some other stuff....

...or, in today's lingo...

Pan-roasted free-range chicken with carmelized tomatoes, olives and capers with a tomato herb scented au jus reduction...

Ha.

That was cool.

I just impressed myself.

First of all I have to say that I used to be an amazing cook. And a fabulous baker. And then I was hit with some ridiculous diet restrictions that made me a) crabby and b) not too inspired to cook.

But then I remembered this recipe that I modified from Martha (yea, she said it was OK and all) and I thought it is tasty even for people without food restrictions and it is healthy and low fat and all that blah, blah, blah so I thought I'd share an actual recipe with you instead of my cheating recipe for just putting almonds in a bowl. (yes, if you read that post I am still ashamed of myself...sigh...)

Now this ain't no Pioneer Woman recipe so be nice to me.

But it is actually really good. And if you can eat regular food like regular people it would be great with some mashed potatoes or rice or a couple of big ol' hunks of french bread.

Here's what you need:
1 pint grape tomatoes or a 16 oz. can of whole tomatoes
16 large black olives such as pitted Kalamata or just the plain, old kind kinds put on their fingers
3 tablespoons of capers (rinsed if you don't like salt-y)
Spray olive-oil (the real recipe calls for 3 T. olive oil but I made it a lot lighter)
2 boneskinless chicken breasts pounded out to about an inch thick and cut in half but I'm not showing a picture of this because raw meat is gaggy
Salt and pepper
Thyme

Heat oven to 475 degrees. Yes, that is smokin' hot.

Toss tomatoes, olives, capers, pepper together in a small red bowl. You can probably use any color bowl. I suspect it won't matter. If you don't care about the calories toss these veggies together with 2 tablespoons olive oil. Set aside.
Heat an oven-proof skillet to smokin' hot on the top of the stove. Don't catch your kitchen on fire. That would be a bad thing but if you do it's not my fault cuz I warned you here. If you are doing the spray thing, spray the pan, throw the chicken in and sear one side until it is a purty golden brown (about 4 minutes) If you are using oil use the remaining tablespoon to cook the chicken in.

Flip the chicken over then throw the tomato-caper-olive mixture on top of the chicken.

Pour a tablespoon or so of chicken broth into the pan. If you use the oil, though, don't use the chicken broth.

Put the whole danged thing in the smokin' hot oven.
Roast until cooked through and golden brown - 15 - 18 minutes. Remove chicken to a serving platter.

Crank up the heat under the pan juices and throw about 1/2 teaspoon of thyme in the pan, the tomato juices from the canned tomatoes (if you used them) and a little bit more chicken broth. Boil like crazy until it reduces by about half. Serve over the chicken (or the potatoes if you can eat them)

And voila! It is a real recipe. And it is delicious.

And now you can never say..."Oh, that Jenny Matlock blog. She is hardly worth reading cuz there is never a decent recipe on there."

Well, you can say it if you want but it is a big, fat lie now so I don't really care.

OK, I do care which is why I posted the recipe in the first place.

Sigh...