Good Food Hunting

I made dinner awhile ago.  Chris is in love with his new rice cooker so he, earlier, had put a pot of jasmine rice on.  We had the parmesan-crusted chicken from Kroger on standby in the fridge and just needed a way to tie it all together.  Oh, and baby bella mushrooms were on sale this week so we have several packages in the crisper.

I decided to make an enhanced tomato sauce using our favorite Prego Organic Tomato-Basil as a base.

To make the chicken:

• Heat oven to 350.  Spray a small baking pan with non-stick spray or olive oil spray.
• Cut 1/2 onion in to wedges and place in the pan.  Drizzle with a little balsamic vinegar.
• Place chicken over onions and bake in oven. I set timer for 30 minutes initially.
• After 30 minutes, I took the onions out and I put my thermometer-timer probe in one breast and set the temperature-alert for 163 degrees.  It took another 6 minutes back in the oven for the  chicken to finish.

For Sauce:

• Heat 1 tbls olive oil (I used a garlic infused one) in a pan.  Add 1/4 onion chopped and 1 sprig of finely chopped rosemary to the pan. Saute 5 minutes until onions are translucent.
• Add mushrooms to the pan, stir to combine. Allow to cook 2-3 minutes then add 2 pinches salt and walk away.  The water will come out of the mushrooms and they’ll shrink down.  Let them cook about 7-8 minutes.
• Pour 1/4 cup red wine over mushrooms.  Add 3/4 to 1 cup tomato sauce and bring to a boil.
• Reduce heat to low and let simmer while the chicken finishes (about 10-15 minutes).
• When I took the onions out of the baking pan (see above), I put them in sauce to finish.

I used Tiz red wine for the sauce. We had about 1/4 bottle left from a previous meal so half went in the pan and half in my glass.

This rosemary was so fragrant and beautiful looking, I had to take that picture.  I found these bundles (also bought some sage) at Horrock’s Farm Market this week.  I think later this week I’m going to fry some of the sage for garnish on some kind of risotto.

Sounding pretty good?  Wouldn’t a picture really bring it to life?

The problem with food photos is you can’t take a quality photo of hot food. The steam interferes and makes the picture look all fuzzy.  And if you wait for it to cool off? Well, see above!

This is Chris’s plate. Note the near oblitaration of the sauce.