Creamy Tuscan Chicken

Hello

안녕하세요

(Annyeonghaseyo)

こんにちは

(Konnichiwa)

你好

(Ni Hao)

It's time for another recipe from the latest Pinch of Nom recipe book, and this time we're heading into the Batch Cook chapter.

As the chapters title suggests, this dish can be batch cooked and put into the freezer for a later date, all you need to do is cool within 2 hours of cooking, then divide the cooked dish into individual servings and freeze immediately.

Let's get cooking!

Ingredients:

Low-calorie cooking spray

500g cherry tomatoes, halved

sea salt and freshly ground pepper

2 onions, peeled and thinly sliced

4 garlic cloves, peeled and minced

4 medium skinless chicken breasts

600ml chicken stock (1 chicken stock cube)

1 tsp dried basil

1/4 tsp dried oregano

180g reduced-fat cream cheese

80g fresh spinach, roughly torn

Start off by pre-heating tour oven to 240C/220C Fan/Gas Mark 9.

While to oven is pre-heating, prep all your ingredients that need chopping etc and also line a large baking tray with foil and spray with low-calorie cooking spray (I had ran out of foil).

Place the tomato halves on the baking tray in a single layer, cut side up.

Spray with more low-calorie cooking spray and season with salt & pepper, then roast in the oven for 20 minutes until they have wrinkled a little. 

Remove and set aside.

While the tomatoes are cooking, spray a large frying pan with low-calorie cooking spray and gently fry the onions and garlic over a medium heat for 5 minutes, until they have softened a little.

Next add the chicken breasts, stock, basil and oregano to the pan, and cook the chicken over a medium heat on one side for 10 minutes, flip the chicken over, and loosely place a lid on the pan and cook for another 10 minutes.

It will be ready once the chicken is cooked and white throughout, and the stock has reduced down.

You can cut the chicken on the thickest part to check if it's cooked.

When everything is cooked, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the cream cheese until it has melted in. If the sauce seems to thin, reduce it over the heat for a bit longer, it if seems too thick, mix in a little water.

Stir in the spinach, so that it wilts slightly, then stir in the roasted tomatoes.

Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with an accompaniment of your choice, I served it with some herby baby potatoes.

I'm not 100% on how I felt about this dish, I'd have to give it another go and try it again, I read somewhere that you need to try foods etc at least 3 times to know if it's something you like or not. I'm extremely fussy when it comes to chicken and prefer to see it cook on it's own rather than in a sauce that way I know if it's full cooked, so I spent a lot of time putting it back into cook because it's still didn't look cooked through for me.

You could really taste the cream cheese within the sauce and I couldn't decide if it was a flavour I really enjoyed, Skye didn't seem too fussed over it either.

The dish is really easy and simple to cook and is perfect for batch cooking for a later date.

If you're interested in any of Pinch of Nom's recipe's then you can buy the recipe books in all major supermarkets as well as online retailers Waterstones and Amazon.

See you soon!

안녕

(Annyeong)

さようなら

(Sayonara)

再见

(ZaiJian)

Bye