Tomato Basil Chicken

I can't exactly pinpoint when this obsession started, but I love Gordon Ramsay. 

I love him when he's angry.

I love him when he's happy.

 

I love him when he's being adorable on Junior MasterChef.

Yup, I told myself I wasn't going to watch that show because it would be so stupid. Watched it, loved it, cried at the end.

Every time I finish an episode, I have the instant urge to cook. In my head, I'll create a gorgeous dish that tastes like bits of heaven and magic that would make a single tear roll down Chef Ramsay's face. In reality, I'm lucky if it only half comes out burned, and I usually eat with the lights dimmed to hide all the weird flaws.

So, after watching one of the latest episodes of MasterChef (miss you, Daniel), the cooking bug struck again. After a brief scan of 45 minutes on Pinterest, I found a recipe that looked light and easy because most of the ingredients you just dumped in one pan. Sounds like my kind of cooking! 

I used the recipe for Tomato Basil Chicken found here with a few modifications provided by yours truly. If you're searching for new recipes, dig around in that Menu Musings blog. She has some pretty sweet ones and all of her posts are extremely thorough with pictures, directions, ingredients, and breakdowns of steps, unlike much of this post.

Step one: choose an adult beverage to accompany your cooking experience. Depending on how things go, you'll want to think of what to pair with your magnificent meal or one red beer will turn into 6. Boom. Dinner is served. This evening's choice was Mike's Hard Peach Lemonade. It is summer after all.

(Contact me when you're ready to offer me an advertising contract, Mike's.)

Then, it's important to gather the rest of the ingredients:

       (Makes 4 servings)

• 2 chicken breasts
• salt and pepper (and whatever else you'd like to season your chicken)
• 2 T. extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes (I used cherry tomatoes, mostly because they are cute.)
• 2 tsp. minced garlic
• 4 T. cold butter
• 1/2 c. chopped fresh basil
• freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese for garnish
• 4 servings of cooked pasta

I like to lay them all out on the counter so I'm not searching around my kitchen mid-preparation. Thanks for teaching me that handy habit, Kool Kids 4-H Club!

 

You'll notice another modification. Shredded cheese was definitely not on the list of ingredients (Parmigiano Reggiano was), but I'll address that later.

Start by seasoning your chicken breasts. I also like to flatten mine out just a bit because they seem to cook faster. Ain't nobody got time to wait for a big, fat chicken breast to cook through.

The recipe only called for salt and pepper as seasoning, but I had recently purchased a giant container of Italian seasoning and it was just dying to be used!

Look at that bad boy!

Then, of course, cook your chicken on both sides until it is nice and done. While this is going on, you can also be boiling water and getting your pasta cooked, which I just realized is pictured no where in this post. 

This is the imagination part of the blog.

Yeah, cookin' up real nice!

Enter dog.

 Food done yet?

While the chicken is cooking, another thing I like to do is prep the rest of my ingredients as much as possible. I sliced the butter and the tomatoes, and I measured out my basil leaves. Note: measuring leaves is not an exact science.

Once the chicken is about halfway done (good luck figuring that out), add your tomatoes. They will sizzle and steam like crazy, and you'll feel like a real professional chef! Yay!

When those tomatoes have settled down, add your basil leaves. The recipes says to "chop them into ribbons", which I think is a pain in the ass, so I just chopped the shit out of them for a few minutes. Good 'nuff.

Oooo, pretty.

Then comes the cold butter to start bringing together the sauce.

Don't mind my dirty pan . . . and stove.

Let's take a minute to appreciate this piece of butter melting from the inside out! Say what? 

It's the little things.

Once that's simmering nicely, add your minced garlic.

 

You should be pretty close to complete with both your chicken and your pasta at this point. With my extensive knowledge of cooking for one, which usually means popping popcorn or eating chips and salsa, I've realized I should immediately separate my portions into containers to eat later. Otherwise, I will either leave it out on the stove or put it away in one big container and not have enough time in the morning or on a lunch break to prep my portions.

 Check out my classy paper plates!

Once that's prepped, slice your chicken and divide the sauce amongst the servings!

Yum-o!

Now, for my cheese business. When I chose this recipe, I actually had everything on hand except the fancy cheese that's supposed to garnish this pretty meal, but I still wanted that cheese factor. Opened the fridge and all I had was ghetto shredded cheese, so I went for it.

In hindsight, I would not do this because it definitely . . . redneck-ified the food. Some recipe substitutions are just not meant to be

Flamers seemed to like it, though.