Jen's Pollo con pomodori e cipolle (chicken with tomatoes and onions)

Hi all!
This was a recipe I made up on the fly as I was digging through my refrigerator. First thing I knew I had to use was some chicken Matt had thawed on Sunday afternoon and was sitting in the fridge staring me in the face. Next I rifled through the veggie drawer and came up with a small onion (OK, I can work with this) and a tomato that looked like it was 2 days away from going to the big composter in the sky. Next up, figure out the seasonings... Looking in the drawer I saw some thyme, oregano, garlic and a McCormic Italian blend grinder and thought, "Sure, why not? They're all Italianish..." And of course we always need some salt and pepper. Most of the time I take pictures as I go so I can help everyone see exactly how this should look as you go along. This time I took pictures so I could remember what the heck I did so I could share, lol!
This dish could easily be served with a side of angel hair pasta or fingerling potatoes, or even a nice risotto or vermicelli. Instead I decided to pair it with a veggie mix I grabbed from Trader Joe's that had asparagus, sliced portabello mushrooms (which spell check tried to change to portable mushrooms... Gotta love spell check!), and red onions. All of the above are great options for pairing with this entree.  It was pretty quick to cook (~30 minutes?) and came out really well! Since this is my own invention, there isn't an original link, but I will tell you the way I named the dish was by typing "Chicken with tomatoes and onions" into bing-translator asking for Italian because of the spices I used, and hitting go. It seemed to fit and sounded fancy :-) I hope you all enjoy this easy and tasty dish!

Jen's Pollo con pomodori e cipolle

 Ingredients:

5 chicken thighs (or breasts would probably work)

2 Tbs Olive oil

1 Tbs Oregano

1Tbs Thyme

1 Tbs McCormick Italian seasoning

1 tsp Garlic

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tomato roughly chopped

1 small onion chopped

3/4 c. white wine

3/4 c. chicken broth

 

Mix all the spices together and rub all over the chicken

I didn't photograph the rubbed chicken because I wasn't sure if I was going to share or not, lol! I still didn't know what I was doing at this point. But here are the spices I grabbed

 

Add 2 Tbs of oil to a pan heat on medium and then brown the chicken

I started cooking them skin side down so this picture is after I turned the chicken

 

While the chicken is browning, chop the tomato and onion

After both sides of the chicken have browned, remove from the pan to make way for the veggies (or fruit and veggie if you're going all technical on me)

Add the onion to the pan and cook until almost translucent (~ 3-5 minutes)

Mostly cooked onions

Add tomatoes to the pan and cook until they look mushy

Tomatoes added, and lots of liquid coming out

Mushy tomatoes with lots of liquid still. Liquid is good at this point!

Add chicken back to the pan and then pour wine and chicken broth into the pan

Cook chicken on medium heat until a thermometer reads 140F. At this point turn the heat up to medium-high and allow chicken to reach an internal temperature of 165F. By turning up the heat at this point the sauce will thicken on its own, but the chicken will stay moist. If the sauce doesn't thicken enough, add 1/2 Tbs of cornstarch mixed with 1 1/2 Tbs water.

Chicken with thickened sauce

Serve the sauce over the chicken and enjoy! SO YUMMY!

For the veggies, I forgot to take pictures, but I mixed 2 Tbs of garlic olive oil, 11/2 tsp of thyme, salt and pepper with the pre-chopped veggies (asperagus, red onion & portabello mushrooms) then put them in the broiler on high for 5 minutes, stirred them around and then put them back in for another 5 minutes and they were PERFECT! YUM

This was a lovely meal and I'd say both the entree and the side went very well together because of the common theme of garlic and thyme. More than that the chicken was moist and the sauce was fantastic! Matt really liked the sauce and all the spices and gave it an 9 out of 10 rating which I'd say is pretty darn good for something I made completely on the fly. I encourage everyone to explore the food in their kitchen and play! Sometimes you'll make something fun and yummy like this, other times you'll want to feed the dish to the dog (see the yellow squash casserole a few posts back...). But you can only figure out what goes together by trying.  Before I close I want to send a big shout out to anyone who is following in another country! If there is anything you all would like to see me make, please comment on the blog. I'm so excited that I've gotten hits from outside the USA! Of course I <3 all my American followers as well! Ok, I just love that people are reading this and hopefully cooking good food that makes them happy!
I hope you all enjoy this new creation of mine and as always,
Happy eating!