We now reach an occurence when I create a recipe completely on my own. This normally goes one of two ways, either Great Success (as Borat would say) or “It’s okay if you don’t make this again” (as my husband would say). This got a good reception, so it is worth sharing.
Based on the fact that I didn’t want to go to the grocery store and that we had not eaten pasta in a while, I set out to create an italian dish with some of the abudance of peppers. Chicken cacciatore came to mind because it mixes meat with tomato sauce, and sometimes can have eggplant and mushrooms. My husband insists on meat with dinner, so I decided to do a bit of investigating regarding chicken cacciatore and this is the recipe I came up with after looking at about six. Otherwise we might just have had homemade pasta sauce with peppers, which is what you would get if you amde this and left out the chicken.
Just a note on the ingredients:
The peppers are from my initial bulk purchase (see A Pepper Problem (part 1)). After this recipe there will only be one left!
The chicken I used was a package of 6 deboned thighs because it was on meat manager special. (To me, meat manager sounds like a very funny thing to list on ones resume. However, the meat manager is one of my favorite people at the grocery store.) Because the price was so good, I bought two packs at the time, one for gumbo and the other for the freezer. So, when I needed meat, that’s what was available. This would probably be fine with leg quarters or even breasts. Bone in normally holds taste better, but thigh meat is pretty delicious, even de-boned.
Made-Over Chicken Cacciatore
Ingredients:
1.5 lb chicken pieces
3 bell peppers (red and green) sliced into strips
1 can of V8 (12oz)
1 can tomato sauce (plain)
1 cup wine (white or red. I used white.)
2 tbsp Italian Seasoning
1 tbsp crushed garlic
1 bay leaf
I preheated the oven to 375. and then combined all ingredients in a casserole. Then, I baked for 1 hour with the lid on and 20 minutes with the lid off so that the top got nice and toasty.
I served it over egg noodles and slices of sour-dough baguette because that is what I happened to have available at the time, but any pasta or bread would do.
Also, always drink the wine you cook with to complement the meal. Plus, it ensures that you cook with good wine!
This was really good and would be great with some mozzarella or parmesan. It would have been nice to add some sauteed mushrooms and onions to the mix, but I didn’t have any at the time.
There was very little left-over, so it probably made about 5 servings.
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