Chicken Cacciatore

A bit of an aside before we begin.  I am a HUGE fan of a really bold and fresh tomato flavour.  When the tomato POPS, I am a happy camper.  This recipe pulls that off in spades.

So…after making pizza’s the other night I had an abundance of half chopped veggies kicking around in the fridge.  After a bit of searching, I found a dish that seemed to cover off the bases when it comes to flavour and also burn through some of those veg in the chill box.

Chicken Cacciatore

• 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts (basically 2 full chicken breasts – cubed)
• 1 tbs vegetable oil (canola / olive…really doesn’t matter)
• 1 sliced medium onion (you want this to be a bit of a ‘chunky’ cut)
• 1/2 sliced green pepper (again with the chunky cut)
• 1/2 sliced red pepper (…ditto with the choppin’)
• 2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms (if you like them.  I don’t, so….hard pass)
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1 big can of crushed tomatoes (796ml/28fl oz)
• 2 tbs chopped fresh parsley (I used a few solid shakes of dry…)
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp italian seasoning (I went with oregano which I had on hand)
• 1 tsp dried basil
• parmesan cheese (to sprinkle on at the table
• 1 package of egg noodles (I went with fusili – I had some on hand)

This one is pretty easy to pull off.  Put the oil in a deep pan and cook the cubed chicken over medium heat.  Once you’re done with that, remove the chicken, toss in all of the dry veggies and basically stir fry them until the onion has become translucent.  Once that happens, toss the chicken back in.  Add the crushed tomato and spices, cover and simmer for 15 minutes or so.  Done.

In a separate pot, boil the water, cook your noodles.  Drain.

Scoop some noodles onto plate, put a big hearty scoop of the chicken/veg mix on top, and then shake on some parmesan to finish (I usually grind a bit of pepper on top for the fun of it).

This one is a winner.  It tastes fresh, it has pasta, there’s all sorts of veggies in there.

Budget wise?  You’re looking at…

2 chicken breasts… ~$5
can of tomato… $1 if you catch a deal, $2 if you don’t
onion/peppers…$2.50
noodles…$2.50
mushrooms…$2.00
spices…negligable

All in all, you’re looking at about $14.  We had company over so this one fed 4 adults, 3 kids and we still had some leftovers.  I ripped up a couple heads of romaine on the side like I usually do when serving a pasta.  So that was a couple bucks more.  All in all?  It’s going on the list!  Bellissima!